Suicide Liaison Officer

Gloucestershire

Line Manager:   Team Leader

The Length of Appointment:   Fixed Term in line with funding

Time Commitment:    20 hours per week –days of work flexible

Background

Sunflowers Suicide Support was set up in memory of Pete Morris who died by suicide in 2016. It was founded by Pete’s family, who run the day-to-day operations of the Charity. Sunflowers is a fast-growing charity offering support to people affected by suicide. Sunflowers strives to ensure that we work in line with local and national suicide prevention strategies and best practice. Sunflowers also works to prevent suicide by delivering intervention and awareness training and through various campaigns throughout the year.

Purpose

Reporting directly to the Operations Manager, the Suicide Liaison Officer will deliver a trauma-informed suicide support service to Sunflowers service users, including postvention liaison support, conducting thorough needs assessments to meet practical needs that arise,appropriate psychological support, psycho-education (information giving), assessing risk, monitoring for symptoms of trauma (including secondary trauma), providing information and signposting to other organisation’s, intervention signposting, safeguarding,liaising with external organisations and partners andcoordination of suicide prevention activities in line with the Charity’s mission, aims and objectives. 

Main Responsibilities

• Working alongside the Operations Manager to develop the Sunflowers Suicide Liaison Service offering support to adults and families including young people and children.
• Assess suicide risk and provide immediate referral and signposting intervention to contacts from people in crisis.
• Provide psychological support which would include psycho-education (information giving).
• Respond to new referrals within 72 hours via telephone or email, followed by a face-to-face meeting within 7 working days where reasonably practicable in order to:

          ✓ Complete a person-focused needs assessment
          ✓ Assess risks and monitor for symptoms of trauma
          ✓ Organise ongoing monitoring through regular contact by face-to-face visits, telephone and                    email support
          ✓ Organise and signpost to provision of needs-assessed support
          ✓ Advocate on behalf of the referral where necessary
          ✓ Liaise with police, mental health trust and coroner to best support and inform referral

• Develop support plans for service users, including agreed review dates to ensure continual monitoring and assessment of needs.
• Ensure the charity database is kept up to date with liaison service notes and client outcomes.
• Support the management team with developing a collaborative alliance with other agencies e.g. the Police, Coroner’s staff and NHS Trusts in order to support the bereaved effectively through legal proceedings which may include NHS Serious Incident investigations, Duty of Candour meetings with NHS services, the Child Death Overview Panel (when a young person under 18 years has died), and involvement with other statutory agencies, offering to attend inquests with the bereaved where it is practical and that support is requested.
• Communicate effectively with GPs, local NHS mental health community teams, and Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) service providers (if available) in the locality, in order to make appropriate and effective referrals, e.g. for trauma-focused therapy in line with NICE guidelines to the appropriate primary or secondary mental health provider.
• Network with other external organisations to promote the Sunflowers Liaison Service.
• Facilitate and attend support sessions and drop in sessions
• Ensure confidential client data is recorded securely and accurately in line with the organisation’s clinical governance and confidentiality policy.

Support:

• The Suicide Liaison Officer must maintain good self-care practices, ensuring that if personally bereaved or affected by suicide they are adjusted to their own loss or experience and have good emotional resilience and are ready and able to support others.
• The Suicide Liaison Officerwill be given adequate line management, supervision, support and guidance.

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