Senior Chaplain

This full time post (37.5 hours per week) based at Hollins Park will lead and support the Trust’s Spiritual and Pastoral Care team in association with the Director of Social Inclusion and Participation. The post holder will have responsibility for the direct delivery and leadership of the chaplaincy service in one or more locality as well as managing the Band 6 Co-ordinating Chaplains across the Trust. The post holder will be responsible for ensuring that the trust wide strategic plans for spiritual and pastoral care are effectively implemented.

The post holder will have responsibility for providing pastoral and spiritual or religious care as required, and where appropriate offering, or referring service users to faith based ministry and worship or to appropriate non-religious care and support networks. The post holder will work in collaboration with other mental health professionals, local faith representatives and professional visitors in order to provide or enable the provision of appropriate religious, spiritual & pastoral care to people of all faith and those of no religion or belief. They will be expected to lead the team’s work around quality and innovation.

We welcome experienced applications from those of all faiths and none who are in members in “good standing” with either their faith tradition or the Non-Religious Pastoral Support Network.

Previous applicants need not apply

Shortlisting date is 5th April 2023

Interview date is 19th April 2023

• To lead and support the Trust’s Spiritual & Pastoral Care team in association with the Director of Social Inclusion & Participation.
• To share responsibility with the Director of Social Inclusion & Participation for the organisation, development, implementation and evaluation of the Trust’s Spiritual Care Service & Strategy.
• To be a source of expert advice and training to all levels of Trust staff, from the Trust board to staff providing care, on all issues pertaining to spirituality and chaplaincy in relation to service user care.
• To act as a key communications link between the Trust, community faith groups, and Regional/National bodies for Chaplaincy in Healthcare and Spirituality/Mental Health
• To lead research and development activity in the field of Spirituality and Mental Health.
• To provide Spiritual, Religious and Pastoral support to Trust service users, carers and staff.
• To promote at all times a positive image of people with mental health conditions and learning disabilities.
• To promote at all times a positive image of the Spiritual & Pastoral Care service, and the wider Trust.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Service Delivery and Management

• To have responsibility for the direct delivery and leadership of the Chaplaincy service in one or more localities of the Trust, ensuring that the service is delivered to service users within these areas in accordance with the Director of Social Inclusion & Participation.
• To provide highly specialised advice to the multi-disciplinary team on aspects of spiritual and religious care within the identified holistic needs of service users.
• To visit hospital wards and departments on a regular basis and be available to provide specialist spiritual, religious and/or pastoral support.
• To respond to referrals from clinical teams, and to devise and deliver specialist programmes of spiritual care to service users referred, also providing highly specialised advice to teams regarding patient care, in relation to spiritual and religious practices.
• To support the multi-disciplinary teams in the development of patient care plans, by participation in critical incident reviews, ward rounds and service user reviews.
• To make provision as appropriate for prayer and worship on Trust premises, with due authorisation from the chaplain’s own community of faith or belief.
• To provide religious, spiritual and/or pastoral support to carers as appropriate on a confidential basis.
• To support and advise staff to ensure that religious and cultural needs of service users from any faith community are understood and addressed.
• To be a point of contact, support and advice within the Trust for Faith and Belief Communities.
• To support staff in breaking bad news to service users and supporting the aftermath of this.
• To line manage Band 6 chaplains working across the trust.
• To perform all administrative functions relating to the line management of other chaplains, e.g., maintaining supervision records, signing off expenses, processing appraisal documentation etc.
• To maintain any Service Level Agreements with external chaplaincy providers.
• To facilitate the smooth functioning of the chaplaincy team within the area of responsibility by ensuring clear and timely communication between team members.