Are you a creative and motivated individual with the passion and drive to support people with a recent diagnosis of dementia to live well in their community?

If so, you can be part of a National Team of Post Diagnostic Support Link Workers (PDS Link Workers) providing high-quality, person-centred support to people living with dementia and their families for a minimum of a year following diagnosis in line the Scottish Government’s minimum guarantee.

The aim of the PDS National Service is to enable people to live well with dementia and is centred around Alzheimer Scotland's 5 pillar model so that people move on to a period of supported self- management.

The model includes understanding the illness and coming to terms with the diagnosis, peer support, connecting and maintaining links with their community along with planning for future care and decision making to develop an outcome focused plan to support their future hopes, desires and aspirations.

Supporting our Highland locality, the post will be based within the Community Mental Health Team at Nairn Town & County Hospital, Nairn. Alzheimer Scotland’s PDS Link Workers are required to be effective team workers and have the skills to build and maintain relationships with colleagues both within Alzheimer Scotland, the NHS and other stakeholders.

Skills in using digital platforms are essential as we use a blended approach to support people that involve some virtual meetings and on-line groups.

Applicants must hold a recognised relevant professional qualification, have a good understanding of dementia and how it affects people and their families along with excellent communication skills, a warm flexible approach, combined with skills in empathy and relationship building.

In addition, you should have skills and knowledge at the Enhanced Level of the Promoting Excellence Framework or be able to evidence you are working towards its completion.

This post requires a full driving license and access to a car.

If you are looking for a rewarding career and to work within an epic team that will help you grow and thrive, then you have come to the right place. Working with us, you can start your day knowing what you do really does make a difference!

Our Innovation and Improvement Team oversees a range of our quality processes, evaluation systems and practice and learning and development. We’re looking for a Quality and Improvement Manager to join our team consisting of:

Head of Innovation and Improvement

Practice Development Manager

Learning and Development Manager

Impact and Evaluation Lead

If you are looking for a new challenge, then Penumbra may be for you.

Penumbra is one of Scotland’s leading mental health charities, providing a wide range of community based and recovery focussed mental health services. We’re proud pioneers in the peer movement, with 27% of our colleagues employed in peer support roles. Our creative and forward-thinking approach to mental health recovery has earned us the reputation as a key influencer in public campaigning, policy and practice, and a highly respected provider of high quality and innovative mental health recovery services.

As our Quality and Improvement Manager, you will support our services to gather the data and evidence they need to understand both areas of strength, and of challenges, and to create development plans based on this evidence. A key focus will be leading and managing our Quality Assurance Framework. Substantially revised and relaunched in 2023 with a brand new digital resource, this approach allows our services to self-assess against our strategic priorities and core quality areas, combined with objective review by the Quality and Improvement Manager. Other key responsibilities are the oversight of our operational policies and acting as Penumbra’s Data Protection Officer.

You truly will have the ability to influence what we do, developing and implementing your ideas to demonstrate what you can achieve, which will make a difference to the people we support.

As a mental health charity, we really value the wellbeing of our staff. That’s why we want you to know that you’ll be joining a friendly team, who will give you a supportive environment to help you thrive in your role, including all the training you need to feel confident and equipped.

We can offer you a tonne of employee benefits, and we can promise you’ll be inspired by some pretty amazing humans every single day. We will support you on your own career path; developing new skills, accessing formal and informal learning experiences and providing opportunities to put your continual progress into practice.

For more information, including full job description and application/interview guidance, please download our recruitment pack.

We cannot consider CV’s – all applications should go through the application process on our website. Only applications completed through our website will be considered. If you are unable to complete an online application, please contact us at recruitment@penumbra.org.uk and we can arrange for a paper copy to be sent out to you.

Please note that unfortunately we cannot offer visa sponsorship. We can only accept applications from applicants who currently have the legal right to work in the UK, or applicants who have already have an application in progress to obtain the legal right to work in the UK.

Change Mental Health is a leading national mental health charity providing unique support to people with severe and enduring mental ill health. With over 50 years’ experience across Scotland, we believe people affected by poor mental health and illness deserve the highest quality of support in the community and that every person has the right to be valued and to share in the opportunities, challenges, and joys of everyday life.

About the Position

Our Policy and Public Affairs Officer connects with and influences politicians and senior decision makers to make society better for people who have mental health challenges, have mental illness and their families. They shall manage projects that shall lead to improvements in support for those with poor mental health.

Key Responsibilities

In this critical role you will work closely with the Director of Public Affairs and Communications to develop and implement a policy and influencing strategy to ensure that the voices of people we support, and their families are heard in all the places they need to be. You will manage projects related to mental health and provide reports.

You will build powerful relationships with politicians, civil servants and partners and feel comfortable representing the organisation at a range of different stakeholder events. You will love policy and public affairs, enjoy mastering details and offering sound advice. You will respond on behalf of the organisation to consultations and events and will be comfortable doing lots of reading and writing. You will enjoy building powerful and meaningful relationships.

Full job description available below.

We are offering fixed term post for a Development Worker – Training to facilitate, develop and deliver Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) Safe Talk and Scottish Mental Health First Aid Training within Midlothian.

Please note candidates must have completed and maintained Training for Trainers status in these courses.

You will be part of the delivery collective responsible for implementation of Creating Hope Together – Scotland’s suicide prevention strategy and action plan.

You will be highly skilled in administration and manage related tasks including advertising, managing enquiries and waiting list, risk assessment, collecting and collating statistics and producing reports.

This role requires excellent communication and organisational skills, where the successful candidate will be required to deliver various training courses within Midlothian.

You will be key to maintaining quality within this area of service delivery. You should have experience of delivering training to a variety of groups including people experiencing mental health problems to support them to gain knowledge and understanding of suicide prevention, intervention and mental health and wellbeing. You should also have experience of developing systems and processes and sharing your learning experiences across teams.

If you have experience in these areas and are passionate about delivering training to raise awareness and improve mental health, we’d love to hear from you! If you would like to discuss this opportunity further, please contact Tammy Kirk by email @ tammy.kirk@health-in-mind.org.uk