**Please be advised this position is a 12 month fixed-term contract**
About the Role
Are you passionate about helping people improve their health and wellbeing and making a real difference to the lives of people affected by substance misuse?
The Forward Trust’s East Kent Community Drug and Alcohol Service is looking for a Smoking Cessation Practitioner to join our team and help improve health outcomes for people accessing specialist drug and alcohol support.
Smoking rates are significantly higher among people experiencing substance misuse and other health inequalities. In this role, you will help integrate effective stop-smoking support into routine substance misuse pathways, raise awareness of the health harms associated with smoking and vaping, and increase access to high-quality smoking cessation support.
You will work directly with service users, colleagues and partner organisations across East Kent to ensure that smoking cessation is embedded into care planning, risk assessments and continuity of care.
You will also play an important role in strengthening the wider workforce by supporting staff to confidently deliver very brief advice and health improvement conversations.
Key responsibilities will include:
- Using Power BI data dashboards to monitor smoking status and identify opportunities for intervention among people accessing substance misuse treatment.
- Delivering Very Brief Advice (VBA) and smoking cessation interventions to service users.
- Supporting service users to access Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) and providing behavioural support.
- Delivering training and increasing staff confidence in providing smoking cessation advice.
- Developing and promoting stop-smoking campaigns, events and awareness-raising activities aimed at target populations.
- Monitoring outcomes and completing monthly reporting in line with service and commissioner requirements.
- Working with local stop-smoking providers to develop and embed effective referral pathways and ensure appropriate outcome data is captured.
- Embedding smoking cessation into care plans and risk assessments.
- Working with prison and hospital settings to ensure smoking cessation support is incorporated into continuity of care plans.
- Identifying and addressing barriers to engagement, including transport, digital exclusion, low confidence and previous negative experiences of services.
- Improving referral rates to local stop-smoking services and supporting reductions in smoking prevalence among people accessing substance misuse services, particularly in areas of high deprivation.
- Strengthening partnership working to ensure service users receive consistent advice and seamless support.
- Working within existing outreach models to engage people experiencing homelessness and other underserved populations.
- Supporting consistent smoke-free messaging across community venues and bringing cessation support closer to where people live.
The role will contribute to Forward Trust and local commissioner targets, with a strong focus on measuring outcomes and demonstrating positive health improvements.
Flexibility is essential, as the role may involve some evening and weekend working, as well as travel to different projects and community settings across East Kent.
About You
We are looking for someone who is compassionate, motivated and confident in supporting people to make positive changes to their health and wellbeing.
You will have experience of working within substance misuse and/or mental health services, with the ability to build positive, trusting relationships with people who may experience multiple and complex needs.
You will be confident delivering structured interventions on a one-to-one and group basis and have experience using motivational interviewing techniques to support behaviour change.
You will also be comfortable working collaboratively with colleagues and external partners, coordinating multiple programmes and contributing to service development and improvement.
Essential skills and experience:
- Experience of working within substance misuse and/or mental health services.
- Experience of delivering structured interventions to service users.
- Experience of facilitating groups.
- Experience and confidence using motivational interviewing techniques in both one-to-one and group settings.
- Strong IT skills and confidence using digital systems and data.
- Understanding of continuity of care, holistic care needs and community services.
- Experience of promoting and supporting equality, diversity and inclusion.
- Experience and confidence coordinating multiple group programmes.
- Ability to work collaboratively with partner agencies and professionals.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage people from a range of backgrounds.
Knowledge and understanding:
- Knowledge of the issues facing people experiencing substance misuse and mental health treatment needs.
- Knowledge and understanding of the Recovery Agenda.
- Knowledge and understanding of safeguarding.
- Understanding of the barriers that can prevent people from accessing and engaging with health improvement services.
Qualifications:
- Level 3 Diploma in Health and Social Care or equivalent.
- National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) Level 2 qualification. This training is available online.