Mental Health Practitioner: Core Vacancy

Band 5

Main area: Warrington MHST Mental Health Practitioner: Core Grade Band 5

Contract: Permanent

Hours: Full time - 37.5 hours per week

Job ref: 350-CC-A

Site: Warrington MHST

Town: Warrington

Salary: £29,970 - £36,483 per annum

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 13/03/:59

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. We also welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training, and experience that they bring to their work with us.

Job overview

Mental health practitioners (MHPs) work across education and healthcare to provide mental health support for children and young people in schools and colleges. An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Core Mental Health Practitioner within the Warrington Mental Health Support Teams in schools service. In line with the government's priority to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the MHP role is an exciting opportunity to deliver evidence-based early interventions for children and young people.

There will be an opportunity for the successful candidate to undertake funded training to become a PGDip Educational Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP).

Please note that the advert may close early if we receive a significant number of applications.

Main duties of the job

Successful candidates will be employed on a full-time basis based within Warrington and will play a key role as a member of the Warrington Mental Health Support Team. They will have the responsibility for delivering the 3 core functions of an MHST to support the mild to moderate mental health and wellbeing needs for children and young people in allocated schools.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

As a Mental Health Practitioner, the post holder will provide high standards of evidence-based client-centred care to children and young people with mild to moderate mental health needs within the THRIVE Framework for service delivery. The post holder will be expected to provide interventions to children and young people and their families/carers referred into the service.

The post holder will demonstrate an attitude which respects and values service users and their carers. The post holder will embrace the core values of the organisation and adopt the principles of Recovery and THRIVE.

PRINCIPAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Clinical

1. To hold a caseload of both specialist and generic work dependent on clinical competence and experience.
2. To undertake assessments and treatment based upon a conceptual framework and employing research-based evidence.
3. To provide direct therapeutic interventions in line with the grading of the post, including assessments, formulation, and therapeutic input into children, young people, and families referred into the service with mild to moderate mental health problems.
4. Undertake risk assessments and care plans accordingly, in line with the THRIVE framework.
5. To work in ways that are sensitive to the needs of children and young people and families from a wide range of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
6. To participate directly in the team's duty rotas in line with the grading of the post.
7. To exercise responsibility within supervisory, managerial, and accountability structures, for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of clients.
8. To deliver care, ensuring effective assessment, care planning, and risk management processes are maintained.
9. To produce a clinical formulation and intervention plan founded on evidence-based practice in co-operation with the child, young person, and carers.
10. To work jointly and collaboratively with other team members in order to enhance and develop the provision of services to young people and their families.
11. To undertake risk management for all children including the protective and risk factors present in the network of significant relationships.
12. Identify and respond appropriately to child protection issues, as described with the guidelines of Local Safeguarding Children's Board and Merseycare NHS Foundation Trust safeguarding policies.
13. Maintain clear and comprehensive electronic clinical records, to ensure information is accurate and complies with Data Protection Act and professional body and Trust standards.
14. To engage with using routine outcome measures as clinically appropriate including their use in clinical practice and inputting data into clinical records.
15. To work collaboratively with children, young people, and their families and contribute to the trust's service user participation agenda.

Person specification Knowledge/ Experience

• Experience of mental health assessments and therapeutic interventions with children and young people with mental health problems and their families.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of patient groups.
• Experienced in and the ability to undertake case management.
• Experience of delivering training.
• Experience in consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Interpersonal skills to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing.
• Demonstrate the ability to co-ordinate care plan/risk management plan.
• Awareness of legislation and strategic frameworks.
• Knowledge of educational environments.
• Knowledge of safeguarding issues.
• Knowledge of capacity and consent issues including Gillick competence.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of therapies in specific difficult to treat groups.
• Knowledge of research design and methodology consistent with practice to at least Degree level or equivalent.
• Knowledge of children services.

Qualifications

• Must have professional core qualification and registration with an appropriate accrediting body (i.e., NMC/GMC/HCPC).
• Teaching qualification.
• Youth Mental Health First Aid trained.
• Successful completion of the HEE commissioned 1yr 'Education Mental Health Practitioner' (EMHP) and or Children and young people's wellbeing practitioner (CYWP) course.

Skills

• Ability to learn in a variety of settings and using a variety of learning methods.
• Ability to identify and provide appropriate means of support to carers exposed to distressing situations and challenging behaviours.
• Ability to identify and employ appropriate clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice.
• Demonstrate a commitment to always respecting and displaying the Trust Values.
• Ability to personally manage a sensitive, traumatic, and potentially emotionally distressing caseload.
• Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health intervention with children.
• Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health intervention with families.
• Ability to conduct group parenting programmes.
• Ability to work within educational settings to increase mental health awareness within the staff group.
• Ability to conduct mental health assessments of children and young people.
• Ability to make an assessment of risk and to record and communicate it appropriately.
• Ability to take appropriate action to mitigate or manage risk.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Able to travel to meet the requirements of the post.
• Team player.
• Excellent time management and organisational skills.

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role to subscribe to the DBS Update Service.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.