Family Ambassador

Transformationunitgm; Birmingham; On-site; GBP 27,000 - 31,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent NHS trust in Birmingham is seeking a Family Ambassador to support parents and carers of children in mental health inpatient care. This role involves providing emotional support, practical guidance, and facilitating communication between families and healthcare professionals. Ideal candidates will possess lived experience as a parent or carer, alongside strong interpersonal skills and a commitment to improving patient experiences. Join us to make a real difference for families during challenging times.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Specialist peer support training

Access to ongoing supervision

Qualifications

• Experience in supporting families dealing with mental health issues.
• Ability to provide peer support and guidance to parents/carers.
• Understanding of confidentiality and data protection.

Responsibilities

• Hold a caseload of families and provide dedicated support.
• Offer peer and emotional support to families.
• Provide signposting to relevant services and resources.
• Support families in meetings with healthcare professionals.
• Ensure families feel heard and included in care planning.

Skills

Lived experience as a parent or carer

Interpersonal skills

Ability to provide emotional support

Knowledge of mental health pathways

Ability to navigate sensitive topics

Education

Educated to NVQ 4 level or equivalent

Job description

Employer Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust Employer type NHS Site 1 Printing House Street Town Birmingham Salary £27,485 - £30,162 per annum Salary period Yearly Closing 24/12/2025 23:59

Flexible working arrangements may be considered and discussions with the recruiting manager regarding this are encouraged.

Job overview

Do you have lived experience as a parent or unpaid carer of a child or young person who has needed a Tier 4 inpatient admission?Could you use your experience to support other families during this challenging time?

As a Family Ambassador, you will provide emotional support, practical guidance, and clear signposting to parents and carers, helping them navigate inpatient care. You will act as a bridge between families and professionals, ensuring their voices are heard and concerns addressed.

All Family Ambassadors receive specialist peer support training and access to ongoing peer supervision, helping you develop your skills and confidence in supporting families.

This role offers a unique opportunity to make a real difference: reducing isolation, providing reassurance, and improving the overall experience of parents and carers. You will help shape services to be more compassionate, collaborative, and family‑centred, influencing care not just for individual families, but across the wider system.

If you want to turn your lived experience into meaningful support and advocacy for others, this role provides the training, guidance, and platform to do so.

Main duties of the job

1. Hold a caseload of families – provide dedicated support to parents and carers of children admitted to inpatient units across the West Midlands.
2. Offer peer and emotional support – act as a listening ear, share understanding, and help families feel less isolated during their child’s admission.
3. Provide signposting – connect families with relevant services, resources, and networks to help them navigate care and community support.
4. Support in meetings – attend ward rounds, CPA reviews, and other meetings with parents and carers, helping them understand processes and participate confidently.
5. Act as a bridge between families and professionals – ensure families feel heard, included in care planning, and supported in raising concerns.
6. Escalate unresolved concerns – where issues cannot be addressed directly, pass them on to the Family Ambassador Lead or wider team for further action.
7. Collaborate with colleagues across the Provider Collaborative – work closely with staff in different units to ensure consistent and joined‑up support for families.
8. Share feedback and insights – highlight recurring themes and experiences from families to help shape service improvement and promote family‑inclusive practice.

Working for our organisation

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust is the Lead Provider of the West Midlands CAMHS Provider Collaborative (WMCPC) – an integrated provision of specialist mental health, learning disability and autism services, for young people aged 12‑18.

Provider collaboratives like ours have been established across England to encourage closer regional partnership working. This means that for the first time, pathway and budget management is WMCPC’s responsibility, giving us the autonomy and opportunity to reinvest savings into community and step‑down services that our region’s young people need the most.

Here in the West Midlands – and across the country – those who need an inpatient admission experience either a long wait for a bed or are admitted to hospitals far from home.

We hope that by working collaboratively, using local data and listening and engaging with our service users, we will be able to reduce the number of young people admitted to inpatient services, drive down length of stay, bring care closer to home and ultimately improve the outcome and experience of every young person we see.

Our Trust is committed to creating the best place to work. We believe in promoting and enhancing inclusion, diversity and equality and encourage applications from all areas of the community, who meet the criteria for the role, regardless of age, gender identity, disability, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification to view the full details for this opportunity at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.

When completing your application, please ensure you have evidenced how you meet the job description and person specification to include transferable experience, qualifications, skills along with professional registration details (if applicable).

Occasionally we receive a large number of applications for our roles and when that happens we sometimes bring the closing date forward, so please apply promptly to avoid disappointment.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Educated to NVQ 4 level in a relevant subject or equivalent level of qualification or significant equivalent previous proven experience.

Knowledge

• Has lived experience as a parent or carer of a young person who has required tier 4 mental health inpatient treatment
• Experience of working as part of a team, engaging and supporting others in a team and receiving supervision and instruction.
• Demonstrates knowledge of the mental health, learning disability and autism health, social care and/or education pathways through lived experience.
• Demonstrates understanding and experience in dealing with the public/families and carers and dealing with sensitive and confidential information; including the recognition of trauma and the impact on individuals.
• Understanding of Confidentiality and Data Protection Act.
• Demonstrates an understanding of the legal frameworks which will impact on the delivery of good quality care, including mental health legislation, human rights, health and social care act and equalities act.
• Experience of delivering support to peers in either a public sector, third sector or user/family led group.
• Experience of supporting individuals to access opportunities and support, ability to signpost to other services. Able to gather information from the local services and area to develop family/parent/carer/advocate resources.

Analytical and Judgement Skills

• Ability to challenge issues relating to stigma, discrimination and none recovery focused practice in a respectful manner.

Professional/Specialist Knowledge

• An ability to maintain confidentiality and trust and an awareness of information governance requirements and data protection.
• Consistently thinks about how their work can help and support clinicians and frontline staff deliver better outcomes for patients.

Personal Skills

• Evidence of good interpersonal skills and ability to form peer relationships with families/carers/parents and advocates.
• Ability to act calmly and to respond in a professional manner to distress and also challenging conversations with staff
• Ability to see solutions rather than problems.
• Ability to work at pace in a busy working environment and able to multi‑task
• Professional, calm and efficient manner
• Effective team player.
• Ability to work without supervision.
• Able to work on own initiative, organising and prioritising own and others workloads to changing and often tight deadlines.

Other Requirements

• Commitment to and focused on quality, promotes high standards in all they do.
• Able to make a connection between their work and the benefit to patients, parents, carers, advocates, family and the public.
• Values diversity and difference operates with integrity and openness.
• Works well with others, is positive and helpful, listens, involves, respects and learns from the contribution of others.
• Consistently looks to improve what they do, looks for successful tried and tested ways of working, and Consistently thinks about how their work can help and support clinicians and frontline staff deliver better outcomes for patients. also seeks out innovation
• Actively develops themselves and supports others to do the same.
• Understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity and good working relationships.

As a Trust employee you are required to comply with all legislation and guidance relating to safeguarding children and adults with care and support needs, and promoting their health and welfare. You are required to inform the Head of Safeguarding of any safeguarding concerns about your own children or children you live with. This information will be treated in a confidential manner.

Sponsorship:

Please note, visa sponsorship is only available for certain roles in line with current UKVI regulations. Please ensure the role you are interested in meets the criteria for sponsorship before submitting your application. If you would like more information, please visit: UK Visas and Immigration - GOV.UK

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

We understand that some applicants may choose to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist in preparing their application materials. While this is not discouraged, we kindly remind candidates that all submissions must be truthful and accurately reflect your own experiences and suitability for this role. Personal integrity and authenticity are central to our recruitment process. We value honesty and appreciate applications that are genuine and representative of the individual behind them.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Application numbers

Occasionally we receive a large number of applications for our roles and when that happens we sometimes bring the closing date forward, so please apply promptly to avoid disappointment.