Educational Mental Health Practitioner

Site Christopher Wren House Town Croydon Salary £34,521 - £41,956 per annum incl. of outer HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 19/03/:59

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 providing high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for the 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 designed to help meet mild to moderate 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 will be based across education settings as an additional resource within a whole-system approach to promote resilience and wellbeing, support earlier intervention, enable appropriate signposting and deliver evidence-based support, care and interventions.

The MHST will partner with their education settings to design a bespoke offer, based on the school's individual needs and will work 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 currently works with 16 schools across Croydon. The successful candidate will be employed by Croydon CAMHS and will be expected to liaise with CAMHS teams when appropriate. The MHST deliver emotional wellbeing interventions using Guided Self Help strategies.

Main duties of the job

As a qualified EWP, you will have successfully completed training as a trainee EMHP. You will be equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and capabilities to work as a qualified EMHP, as an autonomous and responsible practitioner within your scope of practice, alongside education and health colleagues.

You will be confident in providing manualised 1-1 and group interventions based on Guided Self Help with young people and families in anxiety, low mood and behaviours that challenge.

You are expected to liaise and work effectively with the wider network around the child including educational, social care, family and health.

Support and facilitate activities under the PHE whole school approach framework.

Improve access to mental health and wellbeing support, working with culturally diverse populations and adapting services to improve access.

Working for our organisation

Croydon MHST is a friendly and supportive team who have developed a close partnership with local schools in providing low intensity interventions, creating workshops and groups and adapting services to meet the needs of schools, young people and families in Croydon in line with CYP-IAPT principles.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

There is a requirement to work with schools remotely and face to face in delivering low level Guided Self Help to Young People and Families. This will be across various educational settings within the Croydon wave 1 school cluster, remote working from home and Croydon CAMHS.

EWPs play a key role as members of the Mental Health Support Team, who will have the responsibility for delivering schools' whole school approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing for children and young people.

Person specification Qualifications

• Successful completion of the HEE commissioned 1yr 'Education Mental Health Practitioner' post graduate diploma and experience of working in schools.
• Evidence of CPD - Continuous Professional Development in Child and Adolescent Mental Health or Family work training.

Experience

• Experience of working with children and young people, their families and others in educational and health settings with mild to moderate mental health problems.
• Experience of delivering specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people or their families (e.g. Guided Self Help, CBT, parent work).
• Experience of liaising and working effectively with the wider network around the child including educational, social care, family and health.
• Experience of working with culturally diverse populations and adapting services to improve access.
• Experience of assessing and meeting the communication needs of the schools to deliver psycho-education on mental health or emotional wellbeing to different groups including parents, teaching staff and young people.
• Experience of adapting resources to be able to deliver online/ via phone/ google classroom.

Abilities

• Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health interventions with children and families.
• Ability to conduct group parenting and group young person programmes.
• Ability to work within educational settings to increase mental health awareness within the staff group.
• Ability to make an assessment of risk and to record and communicate it appropriately and to take appropriate action to mitigate or manage.

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:

• All applications for this post will need to be made online.
• You should 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.
• The closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should a sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible.
• 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.
• If you have not heard from us within three weeks from the closing date, your application has not been successful.
• Priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees.
• If you are 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.
• 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.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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.