Band 6 Specialist Practitioner and Group Facilitator - Bristol

Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust; West of England; Hybrid; GBP 43,000 - 62,000; Full time

Job summary

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust is recruiting for a Specialist Practitioner and Group Facilitator to co-deliver DBT-informed groups within the Sequoia service. The role focuses on helping adults manage emotional intensity, build resilience, and achieve recovery goals in a collaborative NHS environment.

The post is full-time (Mon–Fri) with some evening sessions and hybrid working, based from home with travel to community settings within the BNSSG locality.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering DBT-informed groups.
• Ability to facilitate psychoeducation and peer support programs.
• Experience mentoring or supervising colleagues.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate DBT informed groups, adapting content to meet service user needs.
• Support delivery of psychoeducation and peer support courses.
• Assess and triage referrals, determine service suitability, and plan reviews.
• Support safe discharge back to GP care following programme completion.
• Contribute to crisis planning, safeguarding, and protective interventions.
• Provide clinical leadership, mentoring, and supervision within the team.
• Work as part of the duty team dealing with ad hoc situations that arise.
• Maintain accurate records and meet reporting requirements.

Skills

DBT Groups

Group Facilitation

Clinical Leadership

Job description

Job overview

Sequoia is a specialist NHS-commissioned service, co-delivered by Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership (AWP) and Rethink Mental Illness, supporting adults with mild-moderate complex emotional needs (CEN) and personality difficulties across the BNSSG area. Rooted in lived experience and recovery principles, the service provides evidence-based group interventions including Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)-informed groups, Mentalisation-Based Treatment (MBT)-informed groups, psychoeducation courses, and peer support programmes.

As a Specialist Practitioner and Group Facilitator, you will initially be co-delivering DBT informed skills groups. With the purpose of enabling service users to manage emotional intensity, build resilience, and achieve recovery goals. You will work collaboratively with NHS teams, voluntary & community partners, and service users to promote wellness, safety, and inclusion.

This role is offered at full time hours - Mon to Fri. Most service-user facing work runs 9:00am–5:00pm, though some evening sessions are required, so flexibility to work one evening weekly is essential.

This is a hybrid role with most staff being based from home with an expectation to travel for planned meetings and some group delivery, based in community settings within the BNSSG locality. Recognising the emotional impact of this work, we provide robust supervision (individual and team-based), ongoing CPD opportunities & regular chances to connect socially with colleagues.

Main duties of the job

• Facilitate DBT informed groups, adapting content to meet service user needs.

• Support delivery of psychoeducation and peer support courses.

• Assess and triage referrals, determine service suitability, and plan reviews and next steps with service users.

• Support safe discharge back to GP care following programme completion.

• Contribute to crisis planning, safeguarding, and protective interventions.

• Provide clinical leadership, mentoring, and supervision within the team for our Rethink colleagues.

• Work as part of the duty team dealing with ad hoc situations that arise.

• Maintain accurate records and meet reporting requirements.

• Participate in service development, supervision, and training.