Child and Family Mental Health Worker

Integrated Care System; Reading; Hybrid; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in Reading is seeking a Child and Family Mental Health Worker to join their CAMHS Rapid Response Team. The role involves providing intensive short-term interventions for young people in crisis and liaising with multi-agency partners. Ideal candidates will have a relevant degree and experience in mental health settings. The position offers flexible working options, supportive supervision, and opportunities for professional development.

Benefits

Flexible working options

27 days annual leave

Excellent learning and career opportunities

'Cycle to Work' scheme

Discounts at popular retailers

Qualifications

• Degree or MSc in relevant fields such as Social Work or Psychology.
• Previous experience working with children and families.
• Significant experience in mental health or social care settings.

Responsibilities

• Provide brief interventions for young people in crisis.
• Work with families to offer support and advice.
• Liaise with multi-agency partners to communicate young people's needs.

Skills

Experience with young people

Mental health assessment skills

Collaboration with multi-agency partners

Crisis intervention skills

Education

Degree or MSc in relevant subject

HNC/HND or equivalent with relevant experience

Job description

Interview will be held on 15th August 2025

Do you want to work with young people and families and have transferable skills to work with complex mental health needs? We have an exciting opportunity to work for a Trust that is rated 'Outstanding' by the CQC.

We are seeking a Child and Family Mental Health Worker working within the CAMHS Rapid Response Intensive Treatment Team. The CAMHS Rapid Response Team delivers high-quality mental health assessments and short-term interventions to young people experiencing mental health crisis. Our service is essential in responding to and supporting young people and adolescents presenting in crisis in the community. It is an exciting time to join Rapid Response as we are developing our service. This role will offer intensive short-term intervention to young people and their families, while receiving supervision and support from senior Clinicians.

We welcome applicants who have skills (or transferable skills) in working with young people with mental health needs and have ideally also worked with their parents/carers.

We offer regular supportive supervision and mentoring, to help you develop and feel confident/supported in this role.

We can consider both full time (37.5 hours per week) and part-time applications.

Main duties of the job

You will provide brief interventions for young people who have presented in crisis where it is identified that additional intensive interventions are required, especially to avoid placement breakdown or admission to an adolescent mental health hospital, or residential care.

You will be working with young people who may have self-harmed and/or expressed suicidal thoughts. You will therefore need to be aware of risk identification and management (with support of a case-holding Clinician).

You will work with parents/carer of the young people in crisis (where clinically indicated) offering support, advice and psychoeducation.

You will work with the young person to ensure they are heard, validated and their needs are understood.

You will play an important key role in liaising with multi-agency partners to ensure the young person's needs are communicated and all agencies work collaboratively together.

You will work closely with the wider Children and Adolescent's Mental Health services in Berkshire as well as local authority, education colleagues and other services/agencies as required.

You will be supported, guided and supervised by senior Clinicians in the team.

You will receive training to enable you to offer interventions such as DBT skills (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills), to enable you to support young people to develop emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills.

About us

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated 'outstanding' by the CQC, we're committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. As an employer, we're committed to offering an inclusive and compassionate environment where our people share in a sense of belonging and are supported to flourish.

Our values at Berkshire Healthcare are:

• Caring for and about you is our top priority
• Committed to providing good quality, safe services
• Working Together with you to develop innovative solutions

Your wellbeing is important to us. Some of the benefits of working for us include:

• Flexible working options to support work-life balance
• 27 days' annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell
• Excellent learning and career development opportunities
• 'Cycle to Work' and car leasing scheme including electric vehicles
• Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services
• Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants
• Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities, the environment and armed forces community to support equality
• Generous maternity, paternity, adoption and special leave
• Free parking across Trust sites

Job responsibilities

The must haves for this role:

Degree or MSc in a subject relevant to the post (e.g Social work, OT, Mental Health, Child Development, Psychology, Counselling, Youth work, Offending etc.) or

HNC/HND or similar in relevant subject with extensive relevant work experience or short courses to degree equivalent level

Previous work directly with children, young people, families as well as working with multi-agencies

Significant experience in a mental health or social care setting, working with children, young people and families

For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification.

We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted.

Were committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in our accreditations: Race Equality Matters Silver Trailblazer, Neurodiversity in Business Corporate Member, Disability Confident Leader, Carer Confident Level 2, and the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award. Reasonable adjustments will be provided to candidates as needed.

We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have. Please dont hesitate to call: Emily Perrin on 07815 485196 or email: [e-mail] wholl be delighted to help.

Please note, if we receive a high number of applications, we may close this role earlier than the advertised closing date, so please submit your application as soon as possible.

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications/Training

• Degree or MSc in a subject relevant to the post (e.g Social work, OT, Mental Health, Child Development, Psychology, Counselling, Youth work, Offending etc.) or
• HNC/HND or similar in relevant subject with extensive relevant work experience or short courses to degree equivalent level

Continuous Professional Development

• Commitment to continuing professional development
• Evidence of relevant training

Previous Experience

• Previous work directly with children, young people, families as well as working with multi-agencies
• Significant experience in a mental health or social care setting, working with children, young people and families
• Experience undertaking assessments of needs
• Working with people in their own homes and the community
• Significant experience of risk management while working independently with vulnerable people in high distress in community settings
• Specialist skills acquired through engagement with different groups of vulnerable children and parents (offending, substance misuse, refugees.)
• Experience of providing consultation/guidance relating to systemtic issues, attachment and delivering training to teams of professions
• Experience of managing groups of parents providing psychoeducation around childens mental health and/or parenting
• Experience of working with children and young people whose needs have been identified as needing CAMHS Tier 3 or 4 interventions, including profoung self-harming and suicidality
• Working with and co-ordinating mult-agencies to ensure young care is joined up and their holistic needs are identified and met
• Work within an NHS CAMHS setting liasing with appoprirate qualified staff co-delivering joint pieces of therapeutic interventions to patients/families

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Listening and advocacy skills, empathy, and ability to lead others
• Personal resilience and ability to work under pressure within a crisis service
• Good IT skills and experience of recording about clients' needs
• A keen attitude to learning and working in a team
• A good understanding of attachment theories and their clinical applications onto family work
• A good working understanding of and/or training on main interventions
• Ability to work autonomously and prioritise own workload
• Excellent oral and written communication skills where there are barriers to understanding
• To have a working knowledge of financial benefits for families eg Carers Allowance, Disability Living Allowance, carer support options, respite/breaks, local groups/carer support, housing issues, employment and educational issues, mental health treatments and diagnoses
• To have knowledge and understanding of a wide range of working procedures and practices, ideally within Berkshire Foundation NHS Trust and Social Services, and knowledge of Health Authority Structure, charitable & voluntary organisations.

Additional Requirements

• Ability to work flexibly
• Ability to travel to multiple sites across the Trust
• Clean driving license and access to personal vehicle

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.