MHST Senior Clinician and Supervisor - Mid Essex

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust; Chelmsford; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading mental health provider in the UK seeks an experienced Mental Health Practitioner to join their team. You will manage a clinical caseload and supervise junior staff, with responsibilities including delivering evidence-based interventions targeted at children aged 5-18. This role requires significant clinical experience and qualifications in psychology or therapy, along with UK professional registration. The position offers support for professional development and the opportunity to work collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team.

Benefits

Flexible working opportunities

Employee assistance programmes

Well-being support

Qualifications

• Minimum of 2 years' experience delivering evidence-based interventions for children and young people.
• Qualified in CBT with relevant clinical experience.
• Registered with a professional regulatory body in the UK.

Responsibilities

• Manage a clinical caseload for children experiencing mental health difficulties.
• Supervise junior staff and Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioners.
• Develop and co-produce training materials with partner agencies.

Skills

Delivering evidence-based psychological interventions

Supervisory skills

Ability to provide Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

Education

Registered Clinical/Counselling Psychologist or equivalent

PgDip training in delivering evidence-based psychological interventions

Job description

Job overview

NELFT is the largest provider of Mental Health Support Teams (MHST's) in England. The MHST's deliver evidence-based individual and group interventions in educational settings for children experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties aged 5 to 18 years old. The teams also have a strong focus on whole school approaches to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people.

Main duties of the job

We are looking for an experienced Mental Health Practitioner with a UK Professional Registration to join our MHST. In this post, you will be a senior clinical team member, holding a clinical caseload and supervising junior staff and trainee EMHPs. You will work alongside partner agencies to develop and co-produce training materials and support the delivery of whole school approach models for mental health.

• Work in partnership with schools CYP, and families in the development of plans for the intervention and agreed outcomes.
• Support the Locality Clinical Lead with the formulation and treatment and management plans for schools, parents, CYP using a range of specialist psychological interventions appropriate to the service, individual and group.

• Effectively manage a caseload of CYP with mild to moderate mental health difficulties, complete thorough assessments, risk assessments, care plans and reviews.

• Provide caseload management and supervision to Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioners, Education Mental Health Practitioner's and Senior Mental Health Practitioner's.

• Support in the delivery of evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

• To work as part of a Multi-Disciplinary Team within your locality but also with other MHSTs within Essex.

• To be able to work as part of a team and autonomously.

Working for our organisation

Our Values 2025 - 2030

Working with our colleagues, patients and carers we have co-produced three new values that we aim to embed within our culture here at NELFT.
We are kind. We are respectful. We work together with our communities.
These three values help us to strive to provide the best care by the best people.

Base

The Mid Essex MHST have a nominal base of Stapleford House in Chelmsford. As agile workers the successful applicant will be required to travel to various NELFT offices and educational settings across the MHST's.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

We are seeking to recruit Supervisors to specifically support the supervision of the Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) within the MHSTs. These post holders must have a good understanding of CBT and have clinically practiced using this model. We want our post holder to be able to lead by example in clinical practice and be able to support junior staff to develop their skills and knowledge of the evidence bases for our low intensity interventions.

The Senior Clinician will be a graduate qualified health care professional, and ideally have formal CBT training for example:
• Qualified CBT Therapist
• Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT)
• Children and Young People-IAPT (CYP-IAPT)

Or will have substantial Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) clinical experience which includes CPD in delivering evidence-based psychological interventions.

Applicants need to be fully registered/accredited with the appropriate professional or regulatory body (e.g. HCPC, NMC, BABCP).

This Senior Clinician and Supervisor role will work closely with the MHST Locality Clinical Leads, the MHST Operational Manager, and other clinical colleagues/partner agencies.

The role is predominantly supervisory. However, the post holder will deliver clinical interventions, both targeted and under the Whole School Approach, to maintain professional registrations and continue to develop. The post holder will need to remain current in evidence-based interventions and have a good working knowledge of CBT. Supervisors are also key to service development in progressing and adapting interventions to ensure we are an inclusive service and contributing to research and development of the MHST's nationally.

Please see person specification and job description for full details and responsibilities required for this role.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Registered/Accredited Clinical/Counselling Psychologist, Family Therapist, Drama Therapist, Art Psychotherapist, CBT Therapist, Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist, IPT-a therapist
• Qualified and registered RMN/RGN, Health Visitor and completed further training/experience at minimum PgDip level in delivering evidence-based psychological interventions.

Desirable criteria

• Completed or currently undertaking CYP PT PgCert in supervision of EMHPs/CWPs

Experience

Essential criteria

• At least 2 years' experience (including training period) of delivering evidence-based psychological interventions for low mood, anxiety and behaviour problems with children and young people.
• Experience of working with moderate presentations and neurodivergence
• Experience of providing caseload management and clinical supervision

Desirable criteria

• Experience working with or in educational settings
• Previous experience of providing supervision to trainees (EMHP/CWP or APs or ClinPsy trainees)
• Experience of providing clinical interventions in different cultural contexts

Skills

Essential criteria

• Experience of and ability to deliver workshops to professionals, young people, and/or parents/carers

Other

Essential criteria

• Access to own vehicle and be able to travel efficiently throughout the area

Benefits

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 effort 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.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

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.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans, reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

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

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.

As part of our recruitment process, we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• MHST B7 Senior Clinician & Supervisor Job Description (PDF, 580.5KB)
• Candidate Recruitment Pack (PDF, 671.2KB)
• Acceptable Use of AI in Recruitment (PDF, 3.9MB)