Senior Mental Health Practitioner

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust; Gillingham; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare provider in the community seeks a Senior Mental Health Practitioner to support children and young people in schools. This role involves delivering CBT interventions and supervising junior staff while promoting emotional wellbeing. Candidates should have relevant graduate qualifications and experience in delivering therapeutic support. The position emphasizes a collaborative approach with educational settings, aiming to enhance mental health services for youth in the community. Full training and support will be provided for development.

Benefits

Flexible working opportunities

Employee assistance programme

Comprehensive wellbeing support

Qualifications

• Successful completion of a graduate training (nursing, social work, occupational therapy).
• 18 months experience in CAMHS or equivalent clinical experience.
• Experience delivering CBT to children and young people.

Responsibilities

• Deliver interventions within schools and manage a caseload.
• Support junior colleagues and maintain their registration.
• Deliver CBT interventions for anxiety, low mood, and behavioral problems.

Skills

CBT interventions

Working with Children and Young People

Safeguarding awareness

Supervisory skills

Mental health stigma reduction

Education

Graduate training in nursing, social work, or occupational therapy

EMHP / CWP qualification

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 five 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

Band 6 - Senior Mental Health Practitioner (Mental Health Support Teams)

Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) are a new government initiative to help increase children and young people’s access to support for emotional wellbeing and mental health. MHSTs are part of the national Children and Young People’s Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP-IAPT) programme. MHSTs have three main functions :

• To work in collaboration with education staff to develop and implement a Whole School Approach (WSA) to emotional wellbeing and mental health. This includes identifying priorities for WSA and supporting with the delivery of these.

• To offer support and guidance to schools, promoting joint working with other services to ensure that children and young people are able to receive the support that they need.

Your role within the service will support the direct delivery of the MHST service in schools as well as supporting junior staff to undertake their roles, part of this is to ensure we can support wellbeing practitioners to maintain registration. Therefore, this role requires candidates to complete the CYP-IAPT Supervisor (low intensity) training or equivalent. Applicants for this post need to be eligible for the course as an essential requirement - please see KCL or UOS websites.

Please see our Website for examples and explanations of our work.

Kent and Medway Mental Health Support Teams | NELFT NHS Foundation Trust

Main duties of the job

As part of their role the post holders will be responsible for delivering interventions within schools and colleges and hold an individual caseload. The post-holder will ideally have clinical experience working with Children & Young People experiencing emotional wellbeing and mental health difficulties and be expected to deliver CBT interventions for anxiety, low mood, and behavioural problems individually and in groups.

Previous clinical experience will be considered alongside the expectations enlisted in the job description and in support, we provide informal training and wider CPD opportunities as well a robust supervision programme to support development of low intensity CBT skills, intervention adaptation and WSA delivery.

An additional part of this role includes supervisory responsibility of junior colleagues and if not previously completed, the service will support enrolment on a supervisor’s course (at one of our affiliated universities). Supervisory training will enhance your skills to support EMHP and CWP junior colleagues to undertake their clinical roles and register with their professional bodies. Within your role you will be offered additional supervision, which will support your professional development.

The post-holder will be a graduate qualified health care professional (Qualification examples : Nurse, CWP, EMHP, Social Worker, IAPT CBT Therapist or OT). They will also need to have registration or have applied to BABCP or BPS.

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.

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers, and attend a number of drop-in sessions focusing on engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should sufficient applications be received.

Skills needed for the post

• Good knowledge and ability to apply CBT interventions.
• Confident in working alongside both Children / Young people and Education settings.
• Willingness to learn and develop both clinical and supervisor skills.
• Awareness of the importance of safeguarding and the role of a Mental Health professional in this.
• Enthusiasm about reducing stigma and promoting understanding of mental health issues.

Flexible Working

We will consider part-time hours (30 hours plus) and flexible working pattern applications will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to promote a healthy work life balance.

Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role and working at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. We encourage you to refer closely to this when completing your application.

We welcome your application even if you do not meet all the criteria listed in the person specification. Any development needs to help you succeed in the role, can be discussed at the interview stage.

Certificates of Sponsorship

Although we are a registered sponsor organisation, we are unable to offer sponsorship for all job roles. Please check your eligibility under the UKVI points-based system. When calculating the basic salary for sponsorship, HCAS (High-Cost Area Supplement) is not included to ensure fairness and consistency within our Trust.

Use of AI

Please see attached document regarding acceptable use of AI during the recruitment process.

Person specification

Qualification

Essential criteria

• Successful completion of a graduate training ( nursing, social work, occupational therapy), EMHP / CWP qualification with 18 months experience or equivalent substantial CAMHS / EWMHS clinical experience

Desirable criteria

• To have completed training relevant to the service ( SWP / Supervisor)
• To have completed formal CBT training ( CYP-IAPT)

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience delivering CBT interventions to CYP and their families

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with schools to support CYP emotional well-being needs
• Experience running therapy groups and / or training events
• Experience of supervising staff

Registration

Essential criteria

• To be eligible for registration as a full member of the appropriate professional body ( HCPC, NMC, BPS, BABCP, Social Work England) where appropriate

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 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.
• 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.