Mental Health Support Team Senior Practitioner

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.

As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

• The Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) are part of an exciting programme funded by NHS England with the aim of improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in the community in response to the government’s Green Paper for Young People’s Mental Health.
• MHSTs are a service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people in education settings. They are made up of senior clinicians, CAMHS Practitioners and Education Wellbeing Practitioners (EWPs).
• They are based across education settings as an additional resource within a whole-system approach to promote resilience and wellbeing, to support earlier intervention, enable appropriate signposting and deliver evidence-based support, care and interventions.
• The MHST is partnered with their education settings to design a bespoke offer, based on a school’s individual needs and works with the mental health services that are already in place, such as counselling, educational psychology, school nurses, pastoral care, educational welfare officers, VCSEs, the local authority, including children’s social care, and NHS Children and Young People Mental Health Services (CYPMHS).
• Our MHST supports 16 schools in Croydon. The successful candidate will be employed by Croydon CAMHS where the MHST deliver emotional wellbeing interventions using Guided Self-Help strategies.

• The practitioner role will (site-dependent) focus on providing day to day clinical oversight and support for the EMHPs as they complete their qualifications over their training year and become a fully qualified EMHPs.
• The MHST team will require development and there will be specific work to ensure robust integration across the schools pathway.
• The role will be working alongside community partners and developing relationships between the MHST and educational settings.
• The role will ensure the efficient and effective delivery of the MHST, providing high quality, safe and responsive mental health services to children, young people, parents/carers and professionals provided in accordance with Children and Young People’s mental health training principles, in partnership with service users and partner agencies, working as part of a multi-agency system.

• The MHST are a friendly and supportive team who have developed a close partnership with Croydon schools in providing low intensity interventions, creating workshops and groups and adapting services to meet the adapting services to meet the needs of schools, young people and families in Lewisham in line with CYP-Mental Health principles.
• By coming to work at SLaM, you will gain experience of being part of an organisation with a rich history and international reputation in mental health care. You will have access to professional development and learning opportunities, and have the chance to work alongside people who are world leaders in their field. SLaM delivered more than 14,000 training experiences in 2014; providing an extensive range of learning opportunities for staff at all levels. In addition, our working relationship with King's Health Partners allows those working at the Trust to get involved in academic research.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The full job description provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. For both overviews please view the Job Description attachment with the job advert.

Person specification

Qualifications

• Relevant professional training will include: First level qualification/registration RMN or RSCN or HV, Occupational therapy, Practitioner Psychology, Social work, Family Therapist or art, play, drama, music therapy or psychotherapy with related CAMHS experience Or Qualified Senior Wellbeing Practitioner
• Professional registration with any of the following bodies: Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC), Health & Care Professional's Council (HCPC), Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP), The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), or British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP), Social Work England (SWE)

• Further post qualifying training and education in working with children and adolescents with mental health problems.
• CYP IAPT training and/or other CPD relating to working in schools

Experience

• Significant experience in a setting where mental health is the primary focus some of which should have been in a CAMHS, school or similar service
• Working in collaboration with supervisor, service user, carers and MDT in assessing needs, planning and implementing care.
• Experience of the following: initial assessments, group, individual and family work, multi-disciplinary work, clinical governance and audit or clear evidence of transferable skills

• Experience in working with children and adolescents with Special Educational Needs.
• Experience of working with children and adolescents with learning disability or ASD.

Knowledge and Skills

• Ability to assess, plan, implement and evaluate risk/care plans to meet the needs of clients.
• Ability to work as a member of a multi-disciplinary team and demonstrate awareness of MDT functioning.
• Ability to recognise own limits & seek support re supervision as appropriate.
• The principles of clinical governance and practice and underlying confidentiality and information sharing

• Research informed and evidence-based methods of assessment, treatment and case management.

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity

Please note:

• That all applications for this post will need to be made online
• That you read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria
• That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible
• That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs
• That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not successful
• That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
• That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
• That we are a smoke-free Trust

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion , Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe’