Senior Mental Health Practitioner SPA Team, Melksham

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust has been rated as Good by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

We are a responsive and innovative Foundation Trust that places our values of Caring, Safe and Excellent at the heart of everything we do. We take great pride in our staff and believe that investing in you is key to us achieving our vision of outstanding care delivered by outstanding people.

We work with a wide range of partner organisations to deliver care and support to people in their own homes and from a number of hospitals and community bases. We focus on delivering care as close to home as possible for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.

We actively support anti-racism, equality, diversity, and inclusion so, if you’re excited about this job opportunity and you meet our Trust values, but feel unsure about applying, then please get in touch and we will be happy to have a conversation with you.

We are also committed to increasing diversity in the workforce, that is why we actively encourage applications from those groups of people who are currently under-represented, which include amongst others: people with disabilities; men from all socio-economic backgrounds; people from diverse ethnic backgrounds; and people from the LGBTQIA+ community.

Good luck and we hope to hear from you.

Job overview

We are recruiting a Band 6 Senior Mental Health Practitioner (SW, OT or Nurse qualification)

We are therefore recruiting to support this expansion.

The position also involves positive working relationships with Wiltshire education settings, focusing upon meeting the emotional wellbeing needs of students via supporting education staff and school nursing.

As a member of the team, you would be supported by a dynamic and enthusiastic team who are passionate about meeting the needs of children, young people and parents/carers. The role requires working alongside our colleagues in the core CAMHS team, other professionals in wider CAMHS and those external to the service.

The SPA team is based in at Melksham Hospital in Wiltshire; adopting a hybrid model of working to balance regular face to face contact with SPA team members.

Main duties of the job

In this role you will be delivering phone/virtual consultations to children and young people, parent/carers and professionals with the aim to gather more information to understand their mental health needs and risk, to determine the appropriate support whether this be within CAMHS or best met by another agency.

Whilst the role can be challenging, the support and experience you will be surrounded with creates a safe positive working environment.

We embrace learning from our colleagues via regular training and supervision to contribute to our up to date knowledge. The role extends itself to regularly connect with education settings to support staff in understanding mental health and how to best meet the needs of CYP.

Also, importantly we value our own wellbeing; we do this by engaging in regular team wellbeing activities to allow the time to pause and enjoy coming together as a team.

Working for our organisation

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust provides physical, mental health and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.

Our services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics and people’s homes, delivering care as close to home as possible

Our values are: “Caring, safe and excellent”

At Oxford Health we offer a wide range of benefits designed to support your career and wellbeing. These include:

• Excellent opportunities for career progression
• Access to tailored individual and Trust wide learning and development
• 27 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days with continuous service
• NHS Discount across a wide range of shops, restaurants and retailers
• Competitive pension scheme
• Lease car scheme
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Mental Health First Aiders
• Staff accommodation (please note waiting lists may apply)
• Staff networking and support groups hosted by our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion team

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

In the SPA you will have variation across the week, consistently supported clinically and administratively to ensure we are responsive and work within specified time frames.

• BSW we have a strong commitment to staff development and progression; we have developed a comprehensive CAMHS specific training programme for all staff at all levels.
• Multiple internal trainings relevant to CAMHS, linkage with external trainings funded through HEE.
• Managers work closely with all staff to ensure they have the right trainings to enable them to confidently and competently deliver high standard interventions to CYP.
• You will be encouraged and supported to access all training appropriate to the role to support you to confidently and competently deliver high standard interventions to children and young people. This will also be supported via engagement in yearly PDR’s which is valued activity in the trust.

You will be required:

1. To provide SPA support through an individualised job plan to cover the needs of the service.
2. To provide phone and digital consultations to CYP, parent/carers and professionals to assess the current mental health presentation and additional wider needs to consider the most appropriate pathway of support.
3. To utilise the internal network of CAMHS professional knowledge and expertise to support clinician decision making
4. When required, triage/screen referrals with the support of a senior clinician.
5. To participate in clinical meetings, case discussions and professional meetings as required.
6. To compile letters, written reports as required and to generate and maintain accurate treatment records.
7. To monitor and evaluate the service provision and support the provision of reports as required.
8. Provide early help consultations to education and school nursing team to consider emotional wellbeing needs of students.
9. You may be required to develop and deliver training to education staff to enhance their knowledge and confidence around supporting children and young people
10. Support junior staff and students.
11. Offer a ‘can do’ and adaptable approach to working in the SPA and embrace the team culture we thrive on.

This also includes on-call managerial supervision and ad-hoc supervision support if required.

All out of hours work is supported by an On-call manager, Consultant Psychiatrist, a Senior Mental Health Practitioner, CAMHS Helpline Service (provided by qualified staff) and hospital liaison staff.

Please do contact me should you want to talk through the role and find out more about the SPA: Sarah Reeves email: [email protected] Mobile: 07876 397 748

Person specification

Qualifications

• Mental Health or equivalent professional health qualification e.g. OT, RMN NURSE, SOCIAL WORKER

• Teaching/mentoring qualification
• Leadership training

Experience

• Post qualification experience in a mental health setting, which includes working with young people with mental health needs.
• Experience of mentoring and clinical supervision of others
• Evidence of delivering mental state examination and risk assessment to inform pathways of care.

• Experience of working with children and young people who present with Neurodiversity.
• Experience of trauma informed approach to your work

Knowledge

• Evidence of continuing professional development
• Understanding of the legal and social policy issues influencing the work environment.
• All new starters have a thorough induction process, both local and Trust wide, which aims to create a positive supportive working environment allowing new employees to learn key elements of their role over a reasonable timescale.
• Appointment to this post is subject to the trust receiving satisfactory references covering 3 years of employment or study. Please ask your referees to respond promptly to reference requests.
• Employees are expected to undertake mandatory and statutory training related to their role.
• We are ambitious in our pursuit of excellence, driven by the belief that a fair, just and fully inclusive organisational culture enables our teams to deliver the best quality of care and services possible and we work hard to ensure that our diverse workforce reflects the communities that we serve.
• We welcome applications from all sections of the community, are an Equal Opportunities employer with a number of internal networking groups to support our employees and where possible will always look to make reasonable adjustments in order that you can fulfil the role to recognise your full potential. All our employees are committed to demonstrating through their behaviour our core values – safe, caring and excellent.
• Oxford Health is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
• Oxford is a world-renowned centre of excellence for research. Oxford Health works closely with the University of Oxford department of Psychiatry and the Department of Primary care, has a Biomedical Research Centre dedicated to improving mental health and the NIHR Clinical Research Facility at the Warneford site. The Trust also hosts the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) which carries out applied research that directly impacts patient health and wellbeing