Senior Mental Health Practitioner.

NHS; Castleford; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading NHS Foundation Trust is seeking two dynamic Senior Mental Health Practitioners to provide urgent, recovery-focused support to children and families facing acute mental health crises. Join a dedicated multi-disciplinary team in Wakefield, where your expertise will directly impact vulnerable communities and help improve mental health outcomes in a fast-paced environment. This position requires excellent communication skills and a strong professional background in mental health, allowing you to take the lead on complex cases and foster collaborative care strategies.

Qualifications

• Experience in mental health or complex care with children and young people.
• Post qualification training in areas like learning disabilities or eating disorders.
• Ability to work autonomously and as part of a team.

Responsibilities

• Assess children and young people in various settings like home and schools.
• Undertake risk assessments and develop collaborative care plans.
• Lead multi-professional meetings and provide support to team members.

Skills

Excellent verbal communication skills

Problem solving skills

Excellent negotiation skills

Record keeping and report writing

Education

Relevant professional qualification

Post graduate qualification in mental health

Membership of professional body

Job description

Go back South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

Senior Mental Health Practitioner

The closing date is 30 June 2025

We have two new excitingposts in Wakefield CAMHS as Band 7 Senior Mental Health Practitioners. You needto be a registered staff member to apply for this role e.g. Mental HealthNurse, Social Worker or Occupational Therapist.

Are you ready to take on arole that is a fast-paced, rewarding role, where you can make a real differenceeach day?

Our Responsive Adolescent andChildrens Home-Based Treatment Team (ReACH) Team is seeking 2 dynamic Senior MentalHealth Practitioners to join our multi-disciplinary team, providing urgent,recovery-focused support to individuals and their families that areexperiencing an acute mental health crisis.

This role is fast-paced and arewarding role where no two days are the same. Youd be expected to workcollaboratively with children, young people, families and external agencies tooffer intensive home-based assessment, support and treatment.

The ReACH Team is the frontline of urgent mental health care, supporting people at their most vulnerabletime and helping them stay safe and feel supported in a community setting.

As a senior member of theteam, you will be expected to lead on complex cases and support staff withinthe team to manage challenging situations. You will also be expected toattend/lead multi-professional meetings to ensure collaborative risk assessmentsand care plans are in place.

The service runs 7-days perweek and on a shift basis of long days (no night shifts).

Main duties of the job

Assessing children and young people in avariety of setting (e.g. Accident and Emergency Department, home visits,schools)

Working with families and carers to implementsafety plans and collaborative care plans

Undertaking risk assessments and reviewing riskdocumentation

Allocated as lead clinician on young people onyour caseload to implement home-based treatment

Support staff in the team and offer clinicalsupervision

Support with delivering training and guidanceto the team

Referrals to internal and external agencies foryoung people and families

Taking on the role as shift co-ordinator

Delivering therapeutic intervention over ashort period to children and young people.

Submitting safeguarding referrals whererequired

Leading on support for those young people whohave been recently discharged from an inpatient unit

For further job information, please see below.

At the time of advertising, this role does meet theminimum requirements set by UK Visas and Immigration to sponsor candidates towork in the UK. We look forward to receiving your application.

About us

Weare a specialist NHS Foundation Trust that provides community, mental healthand learning disability services for the people of Barnsley, Calderdale,Kirklees and Wakefield. We also provide low and medium secure services and arethe lead for the west Yorkshire secure provider collaborative.

Our mission isto help people reach their potential and live well in their communities, we do thisby providing high-quality care in the right place at the right time. We employstaff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make adifference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourageand welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, we valuediversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

Beinga foundation Trust means were accountable to ourmembers, who can have a say in how were run. Around 14,300 local people(including staff) are members of our Trust.

Joinus and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improvingthe mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet andhelp each year.

Weare committedto safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people andvulnerable adults and expects all colleagues and volunteers to share thiscommitment.

We do reserve to right to close vacancy before the advertised closing date if necessary, so please apply as soon as possible.

Job responsibilities

Thisjob description is an outline of the main duties of the post. The post-holder will be required to undertakeother duties commensurate with the grade as directed.

The content of this post will be reviewed in consultation with the post-holderwhen necessary and in line with the service developments.

To provide highlyspecialist skills and expertise, facilitating interventions of the highestquality in the field of mental health, including emergency assessments andintensive interventions with children, young people and their families.

To work autonomously andcollaboratively within the MDT, providing consultation and teaching for otheragencies/professionals.

To provider supervisionand teaching to all other disciplines within CAMHS and to deputise as agreedfor the team leader.

To promote safeguardingand the welfare of children and young people.

To work autonomously withinprofessional guidelines and exercise responsibility in accordance with theTrust Policies and procedures

The post-holder will have highly developed skills in assessing theneeds of children and their carers based on the analysis of highly complexfacts and situations. Interventionswill be planned based on the assessment information and interpretation ofthis. The clinical assessment willinclude gathering appropriate historical information from the child andfamily, allied to clinical observation of family relationships and mentalstate of the child and other family members, and obtaining relevant informationfrom other agencies. Offering highlyspecialist expertise in child and adolescent mental health, ensuring cleardocumentation in all appropriate case notes and sharing assessments andinformation with the family and all relevant professionals.

Toundertake highly specialist initial assessments of young people followingacts of serious self-harm and attempted suicide in line with evidence basedpractice.

To undertake highlyspecialised risk assessments following referral for presentations requiringurgent mental health or psychiatric assessment and plan relevantinterventions.

To implement intensiveinterventions with young people and their families, as relevant to the post-holdersmain clinical role, i.e. group and individual work, systemic familyinterventions. This will include analysis, interpretation and evaluation toreformulate plans of care.

The post-holder willprovide therapeutic care to emotionally demanding clients in highly emotivesituations.

Thepost-holder will develop and maintain therapeutic relationships with childrenand carers. This will include cases ofhigh complexity which require more specialisedlevels of assessment and therapeutic skills.

As part ofmulti-disciplinary team, the Senior Mental Health Practitioner will deliverand devise complex packages of care.Provide individual and family review/follow-up sessions to children,young people or their carers.

To take a lead role insetting guidelines and standards that will ensure all young personsidentified with complex problems are discharged from Specialist CAMHS with anappropriate package of care from universal services.

The post-holder willhave skills to communicate highly complex information regarding personalpsycho-social problems in an empathic and supportive way using the highestlevel of interpersonal skills in situations which can be highly emotional andsometimes antagonistic. Service users and families may have difficulty or bereluctant to understand what is communicated to them.

Communicate complex, sensitive or contentious information utilisinghighly developed interpersonal skills.Take into account issues of confidentiality and the consent of Adultsand Young People. Considering andassessing a childs maturity to consent.

To work with children,young people (0-18) and their families, liaising with external agencies, e.g.Education, Social Services and Paediatric Services. Presenting problems are frequently complexand require that sophisticated packages of care are negotiated anddelivered. To actively promoteuser/carer involvement in all aspects of care planning/delivery whilstrespecting the rights, capabilities and wishes of the individuals concerned.

To apply a soundknowledge of safeguarding children and guidelines in clinical work.

To deputise for theteam leader in his/her absence.

The Senior MentalHealth Practitioner will take the responsibility in developing, managing andcoordinating the supervision systems for the team.

The post-holder willsupport other team members in managing cases, providing joint working whereappropriate on specific therapeutic techniques.

To manage andcoordinate rotas for all disciplines within CAMHS specific to their own areaof specialism.

To support the ClinicalGovernance Lead within the service and participate in the development andmaintenance of governance processes, i.e. clinical incident reporting, riskmanagement.

Contribute to theinduction of new starters in the service.

Responsible for firstline resolution of complaints in line with Trust policy.

Responsible forbudgetary requirement of equipment necessary for clinical interventions.

All employees of the Trust are strongly encouraged to befully vaccinated against COVID-19 to protect patients.

We are aware that an increasing number of applicants areusing AI technology to generate responses on NHS Job application forms. We stronglydiscourage this and will conduct a thorough screening process before selectingcandidates to progress to the next stage. If you are using AI to enhance yourapplication, please disclose this in your NHS Jobs application form.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Relevant professional qualification, e.g. nursing, or other professional allied to medicine
• Post qualification training in identified portfolio, e.g. LD. LAC, eating disorder
• Dip SW or relevant mental health profession
• A teaching and assessing qualification
• Membership of professional body
• Post graduate qualification in mental health (e.g. CBT, Family Therapy, Counselling)

Special Knowledge and Skills

• Excellent verbal and communication skills
• Ability to manage own caseload and to be a self-reliant and autonomous practitioner
• Excellent negotiation skills, and problem solving skills
• Excellent record keeping and report writing skills to include care planning and risk assessments.

Personal Attributes

• Able to work autonomously and as part of a team
• Commitment to multi-agency approach/working
• Ability to work and make decisions under pressure.
• Calm, confident, innovative, creative
• and assertive
• Ability to make and lead decisions under pressure/crisis situations
• Willingness to be flexible and adaptable in accordance with changing service priorities.
• Commitment to challenging discrimination and improving accessibility of services.
• Ability to cope calmly in a crisis
• To demonstrate good self-care and encourage the same in team members
• A Current driving licence and access to a car during the working day is essential (reasonable adjustments will be considered for any applicants who are unable to drive due to a disability)
• To have integrity, be honest, open, transparent and respectful.

Physical Attributes

• Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post. A satisfactory sickness record over the previous 2 years (subject to the need to act with fairness and equality of opportunity, particularly where the sickness is related to a disability and/or pregnancy).

Experience

• Experience of delivering training to others
• Substantial post qualification experience, some of which must be working with Children, young people and their carers in a mental health or other complex care setting
• Experience of working in different cultural contexts
• Knowledge and experience of working with Equality and Diversity.
• Multidisciplinary team working
• Inter-agency liaison and consultation
• Experience of providing highly specialist advice and supervision to other professionals
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and guidance for working with children, young people, mental health and safeguarding
• Evidence of advanced clinical/therapeutic knowledge and skills in mental health.
• Extensive experience in assessment and risk management and ability to implement evidence based practice
• Advanced experience of safeguarding children and young people.
• Experience of community settings

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.

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust