Named Nurse for Safeguarding Children and Young People | Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust

Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust; Maidstone; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A mental health care provider in Maidstone is looking for a Named Nurse for Safeguarding Children. The role involves leading safeguarding activities, collaborating with various healthcare professionals, and ensuring compliance with local safeguarding policies. Ideal candidates must possess strong leadership skills and a full UK driving licence. The position offers an opportunity to contribute to safeguarding children within mental health services across Kent and Medway.

Qualifications

• Experience in safeguarding children and young people in mental health settings.
• Ability to implement training and provide expert advice in safeguarding.
• Strong knowledge of safeguarding legislation and local guidelines.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop safeguarding children activity within services.
• Implement safeguarding policies and procedures in compliance with laws.
• Conduct audits to ensure quality and improvement of safeguarding activities.

Skills

Leadership in safeguarding

Collaboration with multidisciplinary teams

Risk assessment

Education

Full, valid UK driving licence

Job description

Overview

Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust are committed to safeguarding and protecting children and young people from abuse. The safeguarding team enables support and guidance to front line staff to ensure adults at risk, children and families are supported, risks identified and appropriate services referred into to enable working together at the earliest opportunity. In line with statutory guidance the Named Nurse for Safeguarding Children and Young People will collaborate with the Head of Safeguarding, Named Doctor, internal and external partners in leading and promoting safe care, statutory compliance, safeguarding and child protection practice across the full spectrum of activity; from prevention and early help through to protecting children from harm; including incidents and rapid response to unexpected death in childhood.

Responsibilities

• The Named Nurse will lead and develop safeguarding children activity within child and adolescent mental health services and wider mental health services to enable all staff to respond promptly and safely to safeguarding concerns, and foster effective working relationships in order to promote inter-disciplinary and multiagency collaboration.
• This includes supporting operational services to recognise and respond to vulnerability associated with neurodiversity, and risk associated with waiting lists, delay and escalating mental health concerns as part of safe triage and mitigations for the best possible outcomes for children and families.
• The Named Nurse will be responsible for the implementation and provision of safeguarding training, supervision, and expert advice across the organization.
• The Named Nurse will ensure that KMMH has Safeguarding policies and procedures in place in line with legislation, national guidance and the guidance of the local safeguarding children boards.
• The Named Nurse will undertake audits to ensure quality and assurance of safeguarding children activity, including developing action plans to improve practice where necessary.
• The Named Nurse will contribute to the safeguarding wider agenda including safeguarding adult activity to support a ‘think family’ agenda whilst ensuring children’s welfare is paramount.

The Named Nurse will support the development of the Trusts safeguarding agenda within Kent and Medway and areas covered by the organisation. The post-holder will have a significant role in both preventing abuse, and protecting children at risk from harm.

The post holder will be responding to enquiries from the whole workforce, employer and volunteering, and provide professional advice. The role will involve more than responding to safeguarding events; it will focus on prevention and developing a full range of strategies to keep people accessing KMMH safe and to inspire wider confidence in service quality.

Please refer to the attached job description for the full details on the responsibilities and person specification.

Qualifications

The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010).

About the Trust

We are the Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway. Our teams support adults with a wide range of mental health needs. Because we cover the whole county and both hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the 1.8 million people of Kent and Medway. Rated ‘Good’ by the CQC, we care for over 2,000 people in our hospitals and 54,000 in the community each year.

Our vision is simple: We are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It’s why we’re passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. And everything we do is guided by our values caring, inclusive, curious and confident.

Join us - if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's doing well together.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.

This advert closes on Friday 26 Dec 2025.