Senior Mental Health Practitioner

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust; Slough; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust seeks a Senior Mental Health Practitioner in Slough to join the CAMHS team. This role involves enhancing mental health services for children and adolescents, providing clinical assessments, and collaborating with various sectors to facilitate patient care. The practitioner will work within an MDT to deliver effective interventions and support the emotional wellbeing of young people and their families. This position offers a unique chance to engage in innovative practices within a supportive team environment.

Benefits

Flexible working options

27 days annual leave

Career development opportunities

Discounts at retailers and restaurants

Free parking across Trust sites

Qualifications

• Experience in CYP mental health services.
• Ability to manage competing demands and caseloads.
• Continuous professional development.

Responsibilities

• Conduct triage and assessment for mental health appointments.
• Provide specialist advice to GPs and MDT.
• Identify referral pathways for patients.

Skills

Experience in working with young people with mental health difficulties

Collaborative and evidence-based mental health care

Multi-professional and multi-agency working

Communication skills

Education

Qualification in appropriate mental health core profession

Registration with relevant UK governing body

Qualification in therapeutic approaches with children and families

Job description

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Senior Mental Health Practitioner, Slough

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Client:

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Location:

Slough, United Kingdom

Job Category:

Other

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EU work permit required:

Yes

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Job Reference:

10737bd420af

Job Views:

21

Posted:

17.06.2025

Expiry Date:

01.08.2025

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Job Description:

Job overview

The Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has an exciting opportunity for a CAMHS Senior Mental Health Practitioner for GP in the East of Berkshire (Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme - ARRS) join our CAMHS to enhance joint working across primary care and the network of emotional wellbeing and mental health services within the locality, improving patient journeys and making it easier for children, young people and their families to obtain the help they need.

To enable robust access to clinical supervision, professional development and to facilitate recruitment and retention, we will seek to recruit the role that are shared across the PCN and locality Getting Help or Mental Health in Schools Team. Post holders will spend days in the PCN and days in the identified CAMHS Team.

This is a unique opportunity to be part of and contribute to a newly developed and innovative service. This is an important post, at the interface with partner agencies and specialist CAMHS. The posts require enthusiastic and self-motivated individuals who are passionate about delivering duty interventions and contributing to team working.

The post holder will be an integral part of this team, holding a small caseload of Getting Help level cases accepted via triage and assessment in their PCN role. The PCN Clinical Director will be responsible for ensuring that the practices within the PCN are aware of the role and allocate the resource across the PCN footprint.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be an experienced child and adolescent mental health practitioner who will work as part of the PCN MDT to deliver the following:

• Clinical triage and assessment of patients requesting appointments for mental health issues including challenging behaviour. This includes same day appointments and planned appointments.
• Signpost/navigate to other sources of information and local support including peer support, social prescribers, VSCE services youth counselling, youth workers, GEMS; within the Thrive framework/stepped care approach.
• Identify any onward referral pathways and make appropriate referrals, undertaking screening and ensuring provision of required information to support the referral
• Help people to develop coping strategies and draw on their own strengths and resources
• Liaise with CAMHS to enable crisis support and admission avoidance where necessary
• Facilitate appropriate representation in practice-based MDT’s to support clinical management of identified patient
• Provide specialist advice to GP’s and other members of the MDT on the particular needs of children and young people and their families including advice on symptoms, risk or the need for a referral.

Working for our organisation

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’re committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire.

Hear what our people say about working for our CAMHS service:

We value diversity and are proud to be a Stonewall Top 100 Employer.We work hard to create an inclusive environment where you’ll be supported by friendly and professional colleagues to flourish.

Our values at Berkshire Healthcare:

• Caring for and about you is our top priority
• Committed to providing good quality, safe services
• Working Together with you to develop innovative solutions

We welcome people who share these values to come and work for us.

Benefits of working for us include:

• Flexible working options to support work-life balance.
• 27 days’ annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell
• Excellent learning and career development opportunities
• ‘Cycle to Work’ and car leasing scheme
• Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services
• Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants
• Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities and armed forces community to support equality
• Generous maternity, paternity, adoption and special leave.
• Free parking across Trust sites

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The 4 “must haves” for this role:

1. Experience of working with young people with mental health difficulties

2. Passion for providing collaborative and evidence-based mental health care

3. Enthusiasm for multi-professional and multi-agency working

4. Ability to travel between multiple sites

For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification. We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted. For further application tips – see the help with your application document attached once you click apply.

If you’re someone who shares our passion for excellence and care, you belong at Berkshire Healthcare!

We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community, regardless of any protected characteristics. Reasonable adjustments will be made for disabled applicants where required. Interview will be held on 09 May 2024.

Person specification

Education/Qualifications/Training

• Qualification in appropriate mental health core profession. relevant professional qualification as defined by BABCP
• Registration with relevant UK governing body (HCPC/UKPC/BABCP/Social Work England/NMC).
• Qualification in therapeutic approaches with children and families/Specialist training in skills relevant to child & adolescent mental health CYP IAPT Dip in CBT/SFP/IPT-A/Parenting
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the relevant professional body

Previous Experience

• Demonstrable experience of working in CYP mental health services
• Skills and experience of working with children, young people and families around a range of emotional/mental health, behavioural/additional health/developmental needs
• Ability to meet agreed /specified service targets
• Ability to manage competing demands / manage a caseload
• Experience with routine outcome monitoring
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• Experience of teaching and liaising with other professional groups
• Experience of running / co-running groups
• Experience of supervising others

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies with clients with mental health problems
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Good organisational and time management skills, ability to plan and prioritise own workload
• Ability to teach and train others

Additional Requirements

• A positive approach to working with children and young people with mental health difficulties.
• Ability to work as part of a team and independently.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Willingness to work flexibly
• An awareness of own strengths and limitations
• Ability to travel between sites and to locality meetings
• Commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Berkshire Healthcare helps people manage their health in their local area, through a range of specialist and community services across the county. We promote independence and quality of life through community and mental health services and aim for seamless delivery of the best care in the right place. We get to know communities and the people in them so we can deliver the best services that meet their health needs.

Our team of 4,300 staff provide specialist mental health and community health services to a population of around 900,000 within Berkshire. We provide healthcare to people in their own homes and from different sites across the county.

We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community, regardless of any protected characteristics. Reasonable adjustments will be made for disabled applicants where required.

Appointment to any position is conditional on the satisfactory completion of the core NHS Employment Checks Standards. Information disclosed in your application will be checked and any offer of appointment may be withdrawn if you knowingly withhold information or provide false or misleading information.

Please ensure your application is submitted with a valid email address for your referees in order to minimise delays in the recruitment process. Short-listed applicants will be contacted by email, therefore applicants are advised to check their email accounts regularly.

Applicants are advised that as a result of the high level of response we receive for some of our vacancies, we may expire any of them prior to the advertised closing date.

Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust is committed to improving the health of its staff, patients and the wider community by providing a smoke free environment. A smoke free policy is in operation and smoking is not permitted on any of the Trust’s sites.

NO AGENCIES TO CONTACT BERKSHIRE HEALTHCARE DIRECTLY PLEASE

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