SET CAMHS Crisis Senior Practitioner Operational (Mid/West)

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

Job summary

A leading health services organization in the UK is seeking a senior practitioner for their CAMHS Crisis team in Chelmsford. This role involves overseeing operational practices and providing therapeutic interventions to vulnerable young people and families. Applicants should be post-graduate qualified in Mental Health Nursing or related fields with experience in managing complex needs. The position emphasizes collaboration and leadership within a multi-disciplinary team, ensuring high-quality mental health care is delivered effectively.

Benefits

Comprehensive induction program

Proactive health and wellbeing support

Flexible working opportunities

Recognition for work-life balance

Qualifications

• Registered with appropriate professional or regulatory body.
• Experience with high-risk client groups.
• Evidence of working within CAMHS services.

Responsibilities

• Lead oversight and management of operational practice.
• Provide consultation and training to junior team members.
• Directly involve in delivering therapeutic interventions.

Skills

Leadership experience

Experience working with complex needs

Therapeutic interventions

Consultation and training

Education

Post-graduate qualification in Mental Health Nursing, Social Work, or Psychological Practice

Job description

Job overview

The SET CAMHS Crisis and Therapeutic Home Treatment team offers assessment and interventions to young people presenting with mental deterioration or crisis presentations. Working within the Thrive model, the service implements collaborative care plans with community services and the community SET CAMHS team to promote positive outcomes for vulnerable young people and their families. There are opportunities to join working and coordinating alongside community-based teams. The approach meets the needs of the young person to ensure effective clinical practice and brief therapeutic interventions, reducing risk and stabilising outcomes.

Main duties of the job

You will be regarded as a senior member of the team and will lead oversight and management of operational practice within your local area while also inputting into service development across Essex, Southend, and Thurrock. You will work closely with other crisis senior practitioners for peer support, feedback to management via meetings and case discussions about clinical practice, and oversee staffing and rota’s, recruitment, inductions, and staff development. The role will support performance management and auditing outcomes of treatments to improve general service delivery and involve direct clinical work and allocations to team members.

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 places 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.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The office base for this post will be within the Mid and West Essex (Chelmsford Stapleford House) but the service covers Essex wide, making use of agile working. The service provides the latest evidence-based NICE compliant psychological interventions to children and young people with mental health difficulties and complex needs, and their families experiencing emotional wellbeing and mental health difficulties. As an integral member of the multi-disciplinary team you will:

• Have enthusiasm and drive to be part of a senior management team responsible for nurturing and developing the service at this exciting time and contribute to the structure and development of the service moving forward.
• Work in conjunction with senior clinicians and managers to support the delivery of timely and effective evidence-based therapeutic interventions to young people and families who require more intensive therapeutic support and intervention.
• Provide specialist assessments where appropriate, which will be used to inform interventions with children, young people and their families as well as the networks supporting them.
• Be directly involved in delivering and, where appropriate, formulating a range of therapeutic interventions, which may include parent work, group work, and short-term brief focused interventions ensuring a high quality, timely, accessible and evidence-based service is available to children, young people and their families.
• Provide consultation and training to support both junior team members and external professionals, including but not limited to Social Care and mainstream CAMHS services regarding children and families within mental health crisis.
• Provide supervision support and education to junior members of the team, including psychology assistants and contribute to multidisciplinary decision making as appropriate.
• Offer a short intervention to help the young person manage the crisis and support with transition to the local community team, signposting, and/or discharge.

Qualification Criteria

This post would be suitable for a post-graduate qualified Mental Health Nurse (NMC), Social worker, or psychological practitioner (e.g. clinical psychologist, family therapist, child and adolescent psychotherapist) who is fully registered with the appropriate professional or regulatory body such as HCPC with experience working with high risk client groups.

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

• To be registered with accredited body (NMC, HCPC, Social England)

Desirable criteria

• Successful completion of post-graduate training (e.g. arts psychotherapy, clinical psychology, SFT, CBT, DBT, MBT)

Registration

Essential criteria

• Evidence of working within CAMHS services

Desirable criteria

• Evidence in working within crisis services

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with difficult, disturbed or challenging children/young people requiring skilled and complex interventions

Excellent Experience

• Experience of working therapeutically with parents/carers/families of children and young people with complex needs.

Desirable criteria

• CAMHS experience/working for a mental health service

Skill

Essential criteria

• Leadership experience

Benefits

• 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 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 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.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans, reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

Disability Confident employer

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email [e-mail].

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

Data sharing notice

As part of our recruitment process, we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• Band 7 JD (PDF, 470.4KB)
• Candidate Recruitment Pack (PDF, 671.2KB)
• Acceptable Use of AI in Recruitment (PDF, 3.9MB)