Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner Trainee

HCRG Care Group; Colchester; Hybrid; GBP 24,000 - 33,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Group pension

Discounts via My Reward Hub

Wage access as earned

Wellbeing resources and support

Career development and eLearning

Job summary

HCRG Care Group are recruiting a trainee Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner in Essex to train via Anna Freud and work in our Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Services. The role focuses on low intensity interventions for children and families, with a structured 12‑month PgDip CWP training programme and a 1‑year funded posting.

You’ll need a UK bachelor’s degree in a relevant subject, a driving licence, and IT skills.

Qualifications

• Degree required with second-class or higher from a UK university in a relevant subject.
• Overseas qualification accepted if equivalent.
• Further training or experience in a relevant field is valued.

Responsibilities

• Provide guided self-help therapy and parenting interventions.
• Learn evidence-based practice and available interventions.
• Collaborate with health, social care and education partners.
• Attend university-based days and work in the service during weeks.
• Develop a portfolio of case work and monitor outcomes.

Skills

Driving licence

IT skills

UK bachelor’s degree

Education

Bachelor’s degree in psychology/education/childhood development/social work

Overseas qualification equivalent

Additional training or experience in relevant field

Job description

HCRG Care Group are looking to recruit Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners to continue to improve children and young people’s mental health services in Essex. This is a training position where you will undertake training through Anna Freud alongside working in our Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Services. The Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) role has been developed by NHS England as part of the Children and Young People’s Psychological Trainings (formerly CYP Improving Access to Psychological Therapies – CYPIAPT) programme. The course focuses on working within community and primary care settings to increase access to support for children, young people and families. You’ll be trained as a CWP to offer evidence-based interventions like low intensity support and guided self-help. This course enables you to support children and young people with mild to moderate: anxiety (working with primary and secondary school pupils, parents and carers), low mood (adolescents), common behavioural difficulties (working with parents and carers).

You will need a driving licence and use of vehicle for work purposes.

Positions cannot be offered to candidates unless they are available for the start date. Applicants will need to be ready to start work in early‑mid January 2027. Please note that applications for this position is a dual process. Prospective candidates must apply to the university course at the same time as application to this role. A standard recruitment process will follow, with our shortlisted candidate information being shared with the university. The university will check their application portal, confirm candidates’ course eligibility and report this to the service. The service will create a final shortlist with this information and will offer to the applicant successful at the job interview (subject to final university checks).

Package Description

• A salary of £28,500 with access to our group pension
• Free tea, coffee and milk at your base location
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on every day purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise

An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year.

Main Responsibilities

• We are seeking to recruit 4 graduate level practitioners to provide guided self-help therapy and parenting interventions.
• These posts are fully funded for one year.
• You will learn:
• Evidence-based and collaborative practice
• Availability and awareness of evidence-based interventions
• Goal‑focused, client‑centred interventions using feedback tools to facilitate collaboration between professionals, young people and families, leading to more personalised care
• Giving children, young people and families a voice and influence
• Cross‑agency collaboration between health, social care, voluntary and independent sectors
• Working with partner organisations to reduce stigma of mental health and improve understanding of the importance of emotional wellbeing
• Making services accountable by monitoring and sharing outcome data with young people, families and commissioners.
• Be trained to offer consultations and training to colleagues from partner agencies.
• Be introduced to a range of outcome and feedback measures used in CYP Psychological Trainings (PT), and review and interpret them with children, young people, parents and carers.
• Develop an understanding of the core principles of participation and collaboration, and learn how to integrate this into your work.
• You will develop a portfolio of a range of case work over the year, aiming for a minimum of 30 pieces of case work.
• The post holder will attend all university based taught and self‑study days required by the education provider, as specified within the agreed national curriculum and work in the service for the remaining days of the week using their newly developed skills.
• The PgDip CWP training programme will take place over 12 months.

There are approximately 64 teaching days in the year, split between three terms: Term one – three days per week; Term two – two days per week; Term three – one day per week. During university holidays, you’re expected to work full time in your service. Trainees will have the usual annual leave allocation in line with HCRG Care Group Policy.

Assessment

You’ll be assessed through presentations, reflective analysis, a poster, a case report and video clips of your clinical practice. This programme emphasises putting skills into practice and consolidating learning.

The Ideal Candidate

• Ideal candidates will:
• Second‑class or higher bachelor’s degree from a UK university in a relevant subject (e.g. psychology, education, childhood development, social work)
• An overseas qualification of an equivalent standard in a relevant subject
• Degree in any subject with further training or experience in a relevant field (e.g. teaching, TA, learning support, HCA, youth work, counselling)
• You will also need to be confident using IT systems and be able to demonstrate working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages i.e. Outlook, Word, Excel.
• You will need a driving licence and use of vehicle for work purposes.

About the Company

We change lives by transforming health and care. Established in 2006, we are one of the UK’s leading independent providers of community health and care services, working with health and care commissioners and communities to transform services with a focus on experience, efficiency and improved outcomes. We deliver and transform adult and children community health services, primary care services including urgent care, sexual health, dermatology and MSK services as well as adult social care and wellbeing services. Across England, we support communities of many millions and directly help more than half a million people each year – guided by our simple values: we care, we think, we do.

We’re committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people who want to join our team. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company, so we work to provide facilities, work environment adjustments and technical solutions to be as inclusive of everyone.

Finally, we need to let you know that the company you’ll work for is part of HCRG Care Group Holdings Limited and by applying for this job we’ll need to process and hold information about you. If you would like to know a little more about how we use your information, please see our website's privacy policy.

We also have safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults that we work with as a utmost importance, with policies and procedures in place to promote safeguarding and safer working practices and everyone who joins the team is subject to a safer recruitment process, including the disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.