Senior Practitioner.

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust; Castleford; On-site; GBP 38,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A prominent NHS trust in Castleford is seeking a Senior Practitioner to enhance mental health support for children and young people. The role involves delivering evidence-based interventions and collaborating with educational settings. The ideal candidate must be a registered mental health practitioner with substantial experience working in a related field. This position offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on the lives of young individuals and requires excellent communication and teamwork skills.

Qualifications

• Substantial post-qualification experience with children and young people in a mental health setting.
• Experience in evidence-based psychological therapy such as CBT.
• Registered as a mental health practitioner with NMC, HCPC.

Responsibilities

• Deliver evidence-based interventions for children and young people.
• Support educational settings in developing mental health strategies.
• Provide clinical supervision to EMHPs.

Skills

Understanding of mental health interventions

Communication skills

Team collaboration

Problem-solving skills

Education

Registered mental health practitioner

Job description

Overview

Senior Practitioner – South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

The closing date is 10 October 2025.

Are you passionate about children and young people’s mental health? Do you enjoy sharing your knowledge of how to support children and young people with colleagues within the education sector?

Our Future in Mind (MHST) is a growing and developing service within Wakefield which aims to provide early intervention to improve the lives of children and young people experiencing mild to moderate emotional and mental health needs. Due to additional funding we are looking to recruit an enthusiastic practitioner to join our friendly and supportive team.

The successful applicant will be allocated a number of education settings in which they will have the opportunity to develop strong working relationships and provide support to the school community.

Applicants will need to hold a professional registration with post qualification experience of working with children and young people with emotional and mental health needs is essential whilst knowledge and experience of the education system is desirable.

Informal enquiries are encouraged. Please contact Sarah Dixon, Team Manager, for more information.

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

Main duties of the job

Responsibilities of the Senior Practitioner include:

• Delivering evidenced based interventions to children, young people, parents/carers through individual and group work.
• Delivering psychoeducation sessions to children, young people, parents/carers through assemblies, classroom and parent sessions.
• Ensuring children/young people play an active part in decision making about the support they need.
• Providing advice/consultation to education staff to support children/young people getting the right help at the right time.
• Developing local knowledge of services particularly in relation to mental health issues to enable effective signposting and planning.
• Supporting education settings in developing and embedding whole school approaches to mental health through collaboration and coproduction with the school community.
• Participating in the delivery of training programmes for education settings and community services.
• Completing CYP-IAPT supervision training and providing clinical supervision to EMHPs.

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

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

About us

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

Our mission is to help people reach their potential and live well in their communities. We employ staff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make a difference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourage and welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, value diversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

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

Join us and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improving the mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet and help each year.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expect all colleagues and volunteers to share this commitment.

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

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

The post holder will work as part of the Kirklees Mental Health Support Team (MHST) to manage a defined caseload with a focus on providing comprehensive assessment, consultation and evidence-based interventions for children and young people (CYP) with mental health difficulties and their parents/carers.

This post will involve supporting Educational Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) with developing their clinical practice, psychological formulation and school engagement.

The post holder will be expected to provide Case Management and Clinical Skills Supervision to a number of trainee/EMHPs within the service (training may be provided).

The post holder will be able to work flexibly across a range of education providers, be a keen contributor to joint working initiatives and adaptive to change in a growing service. Kirklees MHSTs are delivered through a partnership involving CAMHS (South West Yorkshire Partnership Foundation Trust) as the lead provider, Educational Psychology services (Kirklees Council) and Northorpe Hall Child and Family Trust as wrap around services.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

The postholder will:

• 1.1 Care/service/function provision: Work in partnership to deliver a range of evidence-based mental health interventions with children and young people (CYP) as well as some parent-led interventions. Facilitate evidence-based group interventions with CYP and/or parents. Offer specialist mental health-based consultation, advice and guidance with professionals. Be responsible and ensure the effective coordination of clinical care provided including consideration to safeguarding and clinical risk issues where indicated. Support clinical staff to identify children and young people with emerging mental health needs as well as psychological formulation. Promote overall access to Kirklees MHST where appropriate. Establish therapeutic relationships with children, young people and their families and implement evidence based therapeutic interventions. Plan and organise interventions ensuring that reviews are held within the required time frames. Ensure that all members of the multi-disciplinary team, their colleagues, service users and appropriate others are informed/updated of changes involving current care plans, progress, mental state, and psychosocial factors in line with best practice. Liaise with and advise CYP and families, local authority and other statutory bodies and third sector agencies including children's safeguarding as necessary. Communicate sensitive information to carers and relatives. Use a range of inclusive communication styles and channels as appropriate to the task. Attend multi-disciplinary meetings relating to referrals or patients in treatment, where appropriate. Care plan and manage own caseload. Maintain accurate written records on the electronic record system of the Trust. Undertake mental health assessments, with an agreed plan of action and/or care and low/moderate intervention. Set and monitor Goal Based Outcomes with CYP/parents. Undertake complex risk assessments and develop a formulation of risk which will lead to the development of risk management plans which have taken into consideration a range of possible options. Undertake and continuously re-evaluate complex bio-psycho-social assessments and develop a working formulation which will lead to the development of personalised care packages in line with evidence based and routine outcome measures.
• 1.2 Working as part of a Team: Contribute to gathering feedback for service development. Share clinical skills and knowledge and support the development of others. As part of a team, deliver person-centred care whilst meeting the service standards and objectives. Provide and receive service user information using tact, reassurance, empathy and persuasive skills as required. Act within the 8 principles of the Data Protection Act 1988. Contribute to department/team meetings offering suggestions for quality improvement. Actively engage in good team working to facilitate effective relationships with all health professionals. Maintain strong working relationships and communication links with the team and others in achieving/improving service/quality standards. Contribute to and make suggestions about projects, including audit and quality initiatives pertinent to the role. Take part in team reflection and investigation of complaints and Adverse Risk Incidents as directed to ensure that lessons are learned from mistakes and that team working is enhanced. Comply with corporate governance structures in keeping with the principles and standards set out by the Trust. Engage with external partners/stakeholders (e.g., service users, health care professionals, representative bodies). For further information, please see attached documentation.

Person Specification

Personal Attributes

• Able to work autonomously and as part of a team
• Commitment to multi-agency approach
• Ability to work and make decisions under pressure
• Calm, confident, innovative, creative and assertive
• Clarity of decision making
• 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)

Special Skills and Knowledge

• A good understanding of evidence-based, low intensity interventions for mild to moderate mental health difficulties
• An understanding of mental health and wellbeing support within community settings
• Understanding of safeguarding responsibilities and the importance of multi-agency work for children and families in the community
• Understanding of CYP-IAPT principles including the use of evidence-based therapies and Routine Outcome Measures
• Excellent communication skills including the ability to engage with children/young people of all ages with a wide range of mental health presentations
• Ability to communicate with a wide range of professionals from various settings
• Ability to work effectively with partner services & external partners to promote and adapt change processes
• Good verbal and communication skills
• Ability to manage own caseload
• Good negotiation and problem-solving skills
• Effective record keeping and report writing skills to include care planning and risk assessments
• Good team working skills; able to work across disciplines and foster good working practices
• Good understanding of the green paper initiative and the function of a MHST

Experience

• Substantial post-qualification experience, including working with children, young people and their carers in a mental health or community setting
• Experience of working in Primary Care/MHST services or CAMHS
• Experience of managing a caseload of children and young people with a range of moderate mental health needs
• Experience in assessment and risk management and ability to implement evidence-based practice
• Experience of delivering evidence-based psychological therapy e.g. CBT
• Experience of working with parents (or with adults)
• Experience of working in or in conjunction with an educational setting
• Experience of providing clinical supervision
• Proven ability to work with other agencies and disciplines and in partnership with other organisations
• Experience working within Early Intervention and Prevention Services
• Experience of service delivery via diverse channels

Qualifications

• Registered mental health practitioner (NMC, HCPC) or Registered social worker or KSA equivalent accreditation
• Successful completion of the CYP-IAPT CBT/EMHP supervisor training or willingness to undertake

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 sickness is related to a disability and/or pregnancy)

Training

• Experience delivering training to a diverse audience (or group work)

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 to check for any previous criminal convictions.

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust