Social Worker

Location: Melbourne | Northern Metropolitan

Job type: Not provided

Organisation: The Royal Women's Hospital

**Salary**: Salary not specified

Occupation: Health and Allied Health

Reference: 25499- **Full time 38 hours a week with the option of ADO's**:

- ** Parkville location, with multiple public transport options available**:

- ** Salary/range $86,731.00 to $99,700.00 + salary packaging + super + 5 weeks annual leave**

The Royal Women's Hospital is Australia's first and most trusted tertiary hospital dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of women and newborns, offering specialised services within maternity, neonatal and women's health. Our goal is to be the best place to work, learn and contribute, and to provide exceptional experiences for our patients and consumers.

**About Women's Social Model of Health**

The Women's Social Model of Health Division is a newly formed function that reinforces our commitment to the social determinants of health. Whilst all services at the Women's ensure health equity for all women and patients, the Social Model of Health Division brings together our services and programs that specialise in providing care to women and patients facing challenges that may adversely affect their health. The Social Model of Health Division at the Women's has responsibility for ensuring the hospital's clinical and social support services are coordinated, aligned and leveraged to provide wrap around care for the women and patients who need it most. In particular, the division has a focus on ensuring a woman's social, economic, cultural, environmental, geographic, and other factors are taken into account in her care plan with the overall aim of reducing health inequalities and addressing systemic inadequacies that affect health access and outcomes.

The Royal Women's Hospital provides abortion as part of its public health responsibility to provide safe health care to Victorian people. The Abortion and Contraception team is part of the Social Work Department and provides an intake service for pregnant people who are seeking an abortion. The social workers provide telephone and face-to-face pregnancy decision-making support, pregnancy options counselling, advocacy, information and referral to appropriate community services for these patients who have complex needs and social situations.

**Position Purpose**

The Abortion and Contraception Counsellor/ Social Worker will provide clinical services to patients attending the Women's for abortion services as well as contributing to program and policy development, research, promotion and evaluation. The successful applicant may be required to work in other areas of the social work department as well as supervise Grade 1 Social Work staff and Social Work students.

**Your duties will include (but are not limited to) the following**:

- Provide clinical services to women and pregnant people attending the Women's for abortion services including intake service, psychosocial assessment for women and pregnant people seeking to end a pregnancy, pregnancy decision making support, pregnancy options counselling, crisis counselling, post abortion counselling services bereavement care, advocacy, community liaison, referral and discharge planning
- Involve patients in the decision making of treatment goals, admission and discharge planning
- Work closely with the multidisciplinary team and community support services [e.g. SafeSteps, CASA and family support services] involved in the care of patients and their families
- Possess a high level theoretical understanding and an intersectional approach to your clinical practice in relation to working with victim/survivors of family violence, reproductive coercion, abuse, sexual assault and knowledge of working with complex trauma
- Experience working with people who are experiencing family violence and reproductive coercion including use of the relevant legislation and practice frameworks relating to family violence practice, including but not limited to the Family Violence Information Sharing Scheme (FVISS), Child Information Sharing Scheme (CISS) and the Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management Framework (MARAM)
- Ensure prompt intake and assessment of self-referred and newly referred patient

To gain a comprehensive understanding of the role and its requirements, we encourage you to review the attached position description.

**About you**

**To be successful in this role you will have**:

- Eligibility for membership of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)
- Knowledge and skills necessary to provide clinical services to women and pregnant people attending the Women's for abortion services
- Knowledge of the psychosocial issues arising for people experiencing pregnancy and how this impacts their physical, social and emotional health
- Demonstrated knowledge in psychosocial assessment for women and pregnant people seeking to end a pregnancy, pre