IPS Employment Specialist
The opportunity to change minds. The power to change lives.
As an Employment Specialist, you’ll play a vital role in helping people with mental health support needs on their recovery journey. This is an opportunity to offer hands-on support, to give people the tools they need to recover and ultimately, to transform lives.
It calls for a combination of skills: the ability to empathise with clients; the resilience and determination to seek out job opportunities; the communication skills to engage employers and change perceptions around mental health.
Your responsibilities
As part of a clinical team, you’ll have a range of responsibilities, including:
- Regularly meeting with clients to listen, offer support, help them Identify their best job match, reflecting their skills and aspirations.
- Producing an Action Plan for each client to help them gain and sustain paid employment, including helping them with their job search, CV production, interview techniques and career development.
- Supporting clients with managing their health at work, with input from the wider health team.
- Assessing each client’s work-related support needs, offering benefits or welfare advice and helping them develop a personal Information Plan to support any discussions with their employer and colleagues.
- Sourcing job opportunities for clients through job searching as well as through regular contact with employers.
- Educating and supporting employers, including negotiating workplace adjustments, developing a return-to-work strategy and ensuring job retention with ongoing contact.
- Developing collaborative working relationships with the wider clinical team and promoting the IPS model as a positive step in the recovery journey.
Who we’re looking for
We welcome people from a range of backgrounds and with all kinds of life experience, but here’s what we’d like you to have:
- Experience or an understanding of working with people with mental health support needs, or similar groups.
- Experience of working with people on a one-to-one basis, offering motivation and support.
- Empathy with those with mental health support needs.
- The ability to build good relationships with a range of different people, from employers to clients.
- The ability to manage multiple tasks at once.
- A passion for making a difference to peoples’ lives.
- A degree-level education, or equivalent career experience.
Why join us?
As an Employment Specialist, you’re not just transforming the lives of the people you work with, you’re also creating a fairer and more inclusive society. You’ll join a passionate, driven team and receive the training and support you need to advance your career in a rewarding, diverse and fast-moving environment.
If you’ve got any questions about the role, feel free to email us at and we’ll be happy to discuss it with you.