Quitline– Supervisor and Counsellor

Employment Type:  Permanent
Position Classification:  Health Professional level 3
Remuneration:  $108,595 – $112,114 per annum, excluding superannuation
Hours Per Week:  38
Location:  1 Reserve Road, St Leonards, Sydney (Hybrid)
Requisition ID:  REQ442087

• Be part of an organisation that makes a difference in cancer control in NSW.
• Use your counselling and supervisory skills to provide high quality support to people to assist them quit smoking and/or vaping. 
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are encouraged to apply.

Where you’ll be working

The Cancer Institute NSW is the NSW Government’s cancer control agency, established to lessen the impact of cancer across the state. 

Working at the Cancer Institute NSW means joining a team of committed and dedicated staff who are proud to be a part of the Institute’s purpose of overseeing and accelerating the effectiveness of cancer control in NSW. 

The Cancer Institute is a collaborative working environment that encourages diversity and inclusion in how we work and the way we work together. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are strongly encouraged to apply. Greater consideration will be given to suitable applicants, in order to improve access to employment and career opportunities (GSE Rule 26).

What you’ll be doing

The Quitline Supervisor & Counselling role provides oversight of counsellors on shift and is the first point of escalation for clients and counsellors.  You will be required to provide telephone counselling to people who smoke and/or vape and informational support to carers and family members as well as health professionals about providing cessation care. This will include undertaking clinical assessment, treatment planning, delivering evidence-based counselling, referral, and follow-up sessions to maintain client motivation and prevent relapse. Quitline counsellors work with people from diverse population groups and backgrounds with differing health conditions

You will have demonstrated experience supervising counsellors as well as solid counselling experience, ideally to people who have substance dependence and/or mental health issues.

The Shift Supervisor will be involved in monitoring and evaluating the service, as well as participating in the development and implementation of quality improvement activities, to ensure Quitline NSW continues to operate as an efficient evidence-based service, providing excellent quit smoking/vaping support and information to the people of NSW. 

You will have excellent verbal and written communication skills along with your professional can-do-attitude, be a team player and solution oriented. 

This is an exciting opportunity to join us as we enter the final project phase before we stand up the new Quitline Counselling Service in February 2024, at which time you will take on the full responsibilities of the Quitline Counsellor role.  In the interim we will be seeking to use your knowledge and expertise to assist develop and validate the tools and practices required to support your new counselling role. 

Successful applicants will be required to work 38 hours per week, initially during the project phase to completion from 8.30 to 5.00 pm.  Once the Quitline services is stood up early 2024 the extended hours of service operation is 8.00 am to 8.00 pm weekdays and 8.30 am to 5.00 pm on Saturday’s.  Rostered shift work across hours of operation is a requirement of the role.

Quitline NSW provides a bilingual counselling service.  If you are bilingual, we encourage you to apply.

For your application to be considered

To submit your application, please provide:

• Your resume (maximum five pages)
• A covering letter addressing the Essential Requirements, as outlined in the Role Description 
• A response to the Pre-screening questions, as outlined below.

Essential requirements

• Completed a minimum three-year bachelor’s degree qualification in counselling, social work or psychology and minimum of 3-years clinical experience in counselling and be able to be registered with the Peak Body associated with the qualified discipline.
• High level verbal and written communication skills, including clinical documentation and client communication. 
• Demonstrated ability to remain calm and execute clinical service delivery with confidence and patience in a high-pressure environment.
• Willingness to work a variety of shifts, including weekends and outside business hours, and flexibility to assist with backfilling shifts at times.
• All Quitline staff are required to be non-smokers. A former smoker or vaper must have been quit for at least six months.
• Experience in providing counselling and information in a call centre environment is preferable, but not essential.

If successful for interview candidates must bring original copies of essential qualifications to be sighted by the panel, and one copy to provide to panel.

Pre-screening questions

1. Please provide an example of a situation where you provided supervision to a Counsellor around a complex or high-risk clinical issue.  How did you assess the situation and determine a course of action?   What was your approach to supervising the staff member, reducing a clinical risk, documenting outcomes and maintaining client engagement.
2. Please outline your experience in developing and implementing clinical quality improvement initiatives?

Interested?

For more information: 

1. Click here for the Role Description 
2. Find out more about applying for this position
    

For more information about the Cancer Institute NSW please visit www.cancer.nsw.gov.au. For role related queries or questions contact Dr Kahren White on [email protected] or (02) 8374 3596 

In line with the Public Health Order, it is mandatory for all NSW Health employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (Dose 1 and Dose 2). You will be required to supply evidence of vaccination as part of your application for this role. Applications without this evidence will not be considered.  

Applications Close:  Sunday 5 November 2023, at 11.30 pm.

Part time employment may be considered for this role.

Talent Pool

This recruitment may be used to create a talent pool/eligibility list where candidates may be offered a permanent position within the next 12 months.

 The CORE+4 Values define what is important to the Cancer Institute NSW and our employees.  
Our values are: Collaboration, Openness, Respect, Empowerment, Strategic, Supportive, Innovative and Flexible.

The Cancer Institute NSW is unable to offer salary packaging. Salaries will be negotiated commensurate to experience and qualifications of the role.

The Cancer Institute NSW supports flexible working practices for all employees and welcomes applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from diverse cultural backgrounds and people with disabilities. Stepping Up aims to assist Aboriginal job applicants by providing information about applying for roles in NSW Health. For more information please visit www.steppingup.health.nsw.gov.au.

Please indicate if you have any accessibility requirements in your application or speak with the contact person should you be called for an interview. We provide reasonable adjustment for people with a disability during the recruitment process and during their employment.

To be eligible for permanent appointment to a position in NSW Health, you must have Australian citizenship or permanent Australian residency.

To submit your application please visit https://jobs.health.nsw.gov.au/cinsw