ASC Contact Centre Contact Officer

Job Introduction

Role Purpose

Contact Officers act as the first point of contact made from members of the public and internal and external professionals. They receive enquiries and information from a wide range of people, providing appropriate advice and information, supporting statutory referrals, initiating assessment processes as well as recording details of new referrals for Adult Social Care onto the system that need be allocated to teams within the Service Unit.

Main Responsibilities

• To be the first point of contact for professionals, and the general public requiring information or services.
• Ensuring that people contacting the Contact Centre receive a timely, courteous and helpful response.
• Administer the Crisis Payment scheme in line with Local authority policy and guidance
• Support the triaging process for safeguarding of vulnerable adults.
• Support the statutory work undertaken by the Approved Mental Health Team.
• Initiate the assessment process of adults requiring services
• Support the Continuing Healthcare Team in screening referrals for their Team.
• Enabling Adult Social Care Teams to carry out work effectively and efficiently by collecting correct information from referrers, recording this data appropriately. This will include gatekeeping all referrals to services via agreed protocols.
• Ensuring that callers whose needs following an initial assessment appear to fall outside current criteria are given useful and relevant information to enable them to gain the knowledge required in order to have choices over the services and activities they wish to pursue to maintain their independence.  This will also include signposting members of the public to the web-based directory of services.

To receive referral information from members of the public and colleagues in other agencies, and to record this accurately on the appropriate system and forward when needed.

To signpost or refer people to other agencies where their services are considered to be more appropriate than those provided by Adult Social Care and Primary Mental Health.

Undertake crisis line applications in line with the criteria, signpost appropriately to the volunteer and private sector.

Provide advice and information as appropriate, including eligibility for a range of services including (not exhaustive) accessing welfare benefits, community based and voluntary activities, debt counselling and housing. This will include signposting people to the web based directory of services.

Contribute towards maintaining up to date information on the web-based resources for use by Adult Social Care services, other professionals and members of the public.  

To be the first point of access for the police, mental health professionals, GP’s and other professionals to request mental health act assessments, safeguarding alerts and queries. 

Record activity and input accurate data to the required standard and keep data up to date as required by Unit policies and procedures. This will include keeping out of hours services informed if an Approved Mental Health professional is still working after normal working hours.

Alerting the AMHP HUB or relevant manager of any risk information relevant to a Mental Health Act Assessment before an Approved Mental Health Practitioner undertakes this.

To attend regular supervision and training required by the service.

 Maintain a comprehensive understanding of the Councils statutory functions in regards to the Care Act 2014, Mental Health Act and Safeguarding Adults Legislation.

The ideal candidate will have

About BCP Council

BCP Council provides services to a diverse community of 400,000 residents and employs more than 5,000 people.  Our area includes over 15 miles of beautiful world-renowned coastline.  We can offer career defining roles to transform and improve services.  By working with us, you can help deliver a vision of a thriving, word-class, prosperous and inclusive place for generations to come.

Our Benefits

We offer an excellent benefits package for further details see here

As a result of the creation of BCP Council in 2019, we are working on simplifying our terms and conditions of service and will be creating a single pay structure which is to be applicable for all employees. It is important to us that we offer benefits that our colleagues value as part of their total employment package and we are reviewing these to make sure we have it right. We are in the process of establishing a timescale for implementation and colleagues joining us will be included in these changes. Expected to be in place 2024.

DBS

BCP Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the community and expects all staff and volunteers to share the same commitment. Applicants to this post will be required to complete the appropriate level of Disclosure & Barring Service Check. Please refer to the Job Description or Role Profile for more details.