Mental Health Practitioner

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust; Greater London; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking organization dedicated to enhancing mental health support for children and young people. As a Mental Health Practitioner, you will play a crucial role in delivering evidence-based interventions, collaborating with schools, and supporting families. This role is an exciting opportunity to make a real difference in the community, working within a diverse and innovative team. With a commitment to staff development and wellbeing, you will thrive in a supportive environment that values your contributions. If you are passionate about mental health and eager to engage in meaningful work, this position could be your next great opportunity.

Benefits

Flexible working opportunities

Employee assistance programme

Proactive health and wellbeing support

Supportive networks for ethnic minority staff

Recognition as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’

Qualifications

• Graduate training or substantial CAMHS clinical experience required.
• Eligible for registration with appropriate professional body.

Responsibilities

• Support children and young people with mental health difficulties.
• Develop intervention plans in partnership with schools and families.
• Conduct assessments and manage care plans.

Skills

Mental Health Interventions

Risk Assessment

Communication Skills

Therapeutic Interventions (CBT, Solution Focused)

Collaboration with Educational Institutions

Education

Graduate training in Nursing, Social Work, or equivalent

Registration with professional body (e.g., HCPC, NMC)

Tools

Clinical Tools and ROMs

Job description

Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

We are looking for a Mental Health Practitioner, to join our fast-growing Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in Havering.

Havering was successful in establishing its first two Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in January 2022 during the Wave 5/6 of the national MHST rollout. We take pride in our multicultural service, where our staff members come from various backgrounds and cultures. We are an innovative and motivated team, passionate about collaborating with educational institutions to support our community through our schools. As part of our commitment to excellence, we are currently engaged in a research project with Edge Hill University, and some staff members are involved in a Quality Improvement (QI) project, ensuring the effectiveness and relevance of our services.

Aligned with the government's priority to enhance access to mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the Mental Health Practitioner role offers an exciting opportunity to deliver evidence-based early interventions. This role involves working across educational and healthcare sectors in England.

MHSTs aims to:

• Support children and young people with mild to moderate mental health problems through evidence-based interventions
• Support schools in developing their whole school approach to mental health
• Provide timely advice to school staff and to liaise with other services to help children and young people get the right help and stay in education.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will work in partnership with schools, to support children, young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their families in the self-management of presenting difficulties.

They will work in partnership with schools, children, young people, and families in the development of plans for the intervention and agreed outcomes.

Candidates will work as autonomous and responsible practitioners within their scope of practice, alongside education colleagues. They will be experienced (i.e. 1 year post qualification as a EMHP, CWP or PWP) in the delivery of interventions to support CYP in primary, secondary and higher education settings.

The candidate will complete robust assessments, risk assessments, care plans and reviews.

They will be proficient in using ROMs and clinical tools to gather feedback and guide clinical practice, with opportunities for service provision planning and mapping with schools to inform the delivery of support to CYP.

The post holder will join an established team and will be supported to work alongside EMHPs/CWPs in educational settings, as well as working alongside Senior Practitioners to support learning and development. There will be opportunities for individual work, group work and consultation.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Successful completion of a graduate training (e.g. nursing, social work, EMHP, CWP, PWP, Counselling, Teaching) or equivalent substantial CAMHS clinical experience with a psychological graduate training
• To be eligible for registration as a full member of the appropriate professional body (e.g. HCPC, NMC, BACP, BPS, GTC) where appropriate.

Experience

• Experience of working with children and young people, their families and others.
• Experience of working and liaising with a wide variety of agencies and stakeholders.
• Ability to assess risk and to record and communicate it appropriately.
• Experience of the delivery of specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people or their families (e.g. CBT, solution focused brief therapy).

Knowledge

• Knowledge of educational environments.
• Knowledge of safeguarding issues.
• Knowledge of capacity and consent issues including Gillick competence.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our efforts to support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email [e-mail].

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

In the event of a high number of responses to any advert, NELFT reserves the right to close the vacancy early. If you do not hear from us within three weeks of the closing date then please assume you have not been successful on this occasion.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

The postholder will have regular contact with vulnerable people and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.