Homeless Health Peer Advocate

Homeless Health Peer Advocate
Salary €29,616.36 per annum
Full-Time, 35 hours per week
Cork

Your role:
​​​We are looking for an individual to support people who are currently homeless and to help them to attend healthcare appointments. This includes accompanying people to and from health appointments, supporting people to better understand their health needs and receive appropriate support. The main responsibility of the Homeless Health Peer Advocate will be helping clients to attend hospital appointments, navigating around the hospital/health service and advocating on behalf of clients to ensure they get the treatment that they need.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work alongside different referring agencies such as, Inclusion health teams and different homeless services across Cork.
• Participate in assessing new referrals referred into the service with line manager.
• Accompany and advocate for people at health care appointments. This may be a variety of appointments, including doctors, hospital, dental and many more.
• Provide clear effective handovers to service user’s key worker after appointment support.
• Using a check in/check out system with the line manager before and after appointments.
• Help health care providers to make contact with clients and notify them of their appointments.
• Focus on building the skills and confidence to enable clients to continue accessing health services independently.
• Engage in supporting different research as appropriate and supporting with assessing service users health outcomes through the questionnaires. Attend different homeless services highlighting the HHPA service to staff and service users.
• To attend team meetings and any training organised by line Manager which has been identified as beneficial for your progression in the role.
• To adhere to all Depaul policies and local procedures.
• To adhere fully to Organisational Risk Management Procedures, especially in relation to assessing risk and to lone working.
• To ensure that all clients information is recorded and stored as required (OTIS data base/other records) and in line with Data Protection regulations and Depaul’s Confidentiality Policy.
• To respect participants’ rights to confidentiality in our relationship with them as per the Depaul Confidentiality policy and code of conduct.
• To promote respect, diversity and equal opportunities.
• ​​​​​To attend supervision sessions with Line Manager to discuss your professional development.

The above list is not exhaustive; additional areas of responsibility may be added over time and flexibility to cover for other staff roles is required from time to time.

Person Requirements:

• Have a lived experience of homelessness.
• Be willing to travel.
• Good time management skills.
• Have good written and verbal communication skills.
• Be secure in recovery if relevant.
• Basic IT skills.
• Be a good listener who is interested in others and what they have to offer. Be confident to speak about their own experiences.
• Treat others in a non-judgemental way and with respect. • Be committed and reliable.
• Understand the importance of boundaries and be comfortable to ask for support when needed.
• Be keen to learn new skills.
• Be comfortable with working alone with service users and to be aware of any risks should they arise.

​​​​​​​Closing date for all applications: Monday 8th April 5pm