Social Worker - Kathu at Anova Health Institute

Key duties and responsibilities:

Coordinate Community Component of the Mental Health Project

• Through Outreach Team Leaders, capacitate and coordinate community health workers to support mental health users including home visits to support adherence, missed appointment tracing, provision of education around relapse recognition and their ability to identify and refer individuals and families at risk of common mental health disorders.
• Map existing community-based organisations which are available to support different aspects of mental health issues, strengthening existing referral pathways to these organisations and capacitation of these organisations to provide support where needed. These include addiction recovery groups, gender-based violence shelters and support centres, organisations supporting vulnerable children, adolescents and youth and others.
• Advocate for and contribute to community forums around mental health promotion, prevention and seeking help, including engaging with traditional leaders.
• Engage with traditional health practitioners to align referrals and care.
• Promote mental health through local radio stations, events and other available forums.
• Engage with Department of Social Development to ensure MHU from health facilities are linked to support in the community.
• Together with the project manager, coordinate regularly with SANCA, Vertice and other relevant partners (e.g. LoveLife) including supporting any campaigns or outreach days.
• Oversee community bidirectional referrals and linkage.

Coordination of Mental Health Support at Facility

• Daily oversight, capacitation and support of social auxiliary workers (SAWs).
• Capacitate DoH counsellors and other staff to provide support for MHU.
• Oversee support and counselling of MHU at health facilities.
• Direct service delivery to a subset of MHU who require additional support including linking to other available support in the community.
• Ensure that SAWS are aligning to the relevant SOP’s and relevant statutory requirements.

Project Administration and Support

• Complete, compile, and submit the relevant technical assistance tool/reports to line manager and submit these timeously.
• Ensure a monthly report is submitted of facility and community project activities to the project manager.
• Communicate efficiently and professionally through email and written documents.
• Maintain ethical conduct in line with principles of ethics when dealing with patients and patients’ records.
• Prepare and participate in audit processes as relevant.
• Identify potential advocacy issues and report to the project manager or relevant stakeholders.
• Assist with the collection of human rights data and reporting violations to the relevant parties or stakeholders.
• Advocate for mental health users and provide valid or authentic information for support.
• Obtain regular feedback from clients to establish the effectiveness of the community care centre services, missing services, gaps, inefficiencies, opportunities, and improvement measures.
• Provide regular feedback to the relevant stakeholders while maintaining confidentiality.
• Monitor a project implementation progress vs plan, adjust or provide recommendations as and when required to align to the objective of the programme.
• Attend to relevant mental health programmes or events, workshops, stakeholder meetings, audits, research and attend trainings to remain relevant and comply to latest trends and legislations.

 Any other relevant tasks as agreed with line manager.

Minimum qualifications, experience and skills required:

• A Degree in Social Work or relevant qualification.
• Must be registered with The South African Council for Social Service Professions (SACSSP/Council). 
• 5 years’ experience working a Social Worker.
• 2 years’ experience working in mental health programme.
• Experience managing other cadres (e.g. counsellors, social auxiliary workers)
• Knowledge of various mental therapeutic interventions and related legislations.
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Ability to keep neat, accurate, complete and confidential records.
• Knowledge of working with DoH policies.
• Excellent record keeping skills.
• Resilient and mental strong individual.
• Supervisory, mentorship and leadership skills.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Valid driver’s license and willing to travel as and when required.
• Innovative, organized, analytical and excellent interpretation data skills.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and has attention to details.
• Previous experience in managing and coordinating projects.
• Facilitation and presentation skills.
• Excellent report writing skills.
• Computer Literate – MS Office Packages (MS Outlook, MS Word, MS Excel & PowerPoint).
• Willingness to work flexible hours.
• Fully vaccinated for Covid 19