Mental Health Practitioner

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

The post-holder will:

Provide assessment and treatment to children and young people with mental health needs;

Work autonomously and collaboratively within the MDT, providing consultation for other agencies/professionals;

Promote the safeguarding and welfare of children and young people.

To provide routine and urgent assessment and interventions to young people with a wide range of emotional and psychological problems who are referred to specialist CAMHS, in keeping with evidence based practice with supervision from a senior clinician within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the teams policies and procedures.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

1 To support the ongoing process of delivering a comprehensive CAMHS system.

2 To provide assessment, interventions, therapy to children, young people with the most severe, complex and persistent mental health problems, including those who are severely mentally ill or at suicidal risk and where appropriate, families as both an autonomous practitioner and as part of a multidisciplinary team in a variety of settings to address need. This will include working with the CAPA model.

3 To apply a sound knowledge of safeguarding children and guidelines in clinical work.

4 To be committed to a quality approach for patient care.

5 The post-holder will demonstrate high levels of concentration and provide sustained effort in assessment of complex family issues.

6 To manage own caseload, accessing support and guidance appropriate to individual need.

7 To operate within the clinical and case management supervision framework.

8 To provide training, consultation and supervision to other service providers, partner agencies and junior members of staff as required regarding intensive interventions with children, young people and families.

9 To participate in the development, audit and review of this extension to existing service provision.

10 To undertake extended hours of work alongside fellow specialist CAMHS practitioners.

11 To work collaboratively with all services to provide coherent and co-ordinated mental health services for children and young people as well as other significant partners, ensuring timely transition and relevant consultation, training and support to universal services and targeted groups.

12 To use a range of Information Technology systems (including Rio) ensuring high quality data is collected appropriately, kept securely and confidentially

13 To participate in an agreed clinical audit programme for the service, and ensure lessons learnt from both audit and clinical incidents are reported.

14 To comply with both clinical and corporate governance frameworks.

15 To support the engagement of service stakeholders and users in the development and monitoring of service delivery and identify opportunities for service improvement and redesign.

16 To actively promote user/carer involvement in all aspects of care planning/delivery whilst respecting the rights, capabilities and wishes of the individuals concerned.

17 To work in an innovative and child, young person and family centred way, in a culture of continuous improvement and learning.

18 Apply Trust policies and procedures in instances of aggression, acute distress and disturbed mental health presentations.

19 To maintain relevant professional registration

20 To identify and communicate any concerns through the relevant management processes.

21 To demonstrate continued practice development and engage in annual appraisal.

VDU USER

To record own data and to access email and internet

Trust Values:

The Trust is committed to ensuring the highest standards of care and treatment and expects that all staff treat people e.g, service users, their carers, relatives, friends, colleagues, visitors etc, with dignity and respectat all time. The post holder must all time act in accordance with the Trusts Values:

Honest, open, transparent

Respectful

Person first and in the centre

Improve and be outstanding

Relevant today, ready for tomorrow

Families and carers matter

Safeguarding:

Report any concerns regarding the safety or wellbeing of children, adults service users, members of their families etc, in accordance with Trust Policy.

Prevent and respond appropriately to abuse and understand own role in this by undertaking Safeguarding training.

Trust policies and commitments to be read in line with the relevant Trust Policy:

All staff employed by the Trust must comply with the Trusts policies and procedures, undertake appropriate training required for their role and commit to:

ensure they are aware of the Whistleblowing Policy and how they raise concerns;

maintain confidentiality, in line with the Trusts Confidentiality Policy and Code of Conduct;

understand their personal responsibilities with regards to data quality for any information which they create, use or process in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and Trust Data Protection policy;

comply with the provisions of The Trusts Health and Safety Policy and Protocol. Ensuring their own safety and that of colleagues, service users and visitors. Know the action to be taken in the event of a fire and must undertake fire training annually;

receive supervision in line with the Trusts Supervision Policy and an annual Appraisal in line with the Trusts Appraisal Policy, during which mandatory, role specific and personal development needs should be identified and agreed;

understand their responsibilities under the Trusts Equal Opportunities in Employment Policy and ensure that they adhere to the provisions of the policy;

recognise, respect and support the equality diversity of staff, colleagues, service users, carers and the public. Contribute to a working environment which promotes and responds positively to difference and diversity;

ensure they carry out their duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18 years, as issued under Section 11 of The Children Act 2004, by being familiar with and adhering to Trust safeguarding policies and participatingin relevanttraining;

comply with their professional responsibilities to develop their practice and deliver care through a Clinical Governance framework (i.e. CPD, Audit, Supervision);

demonstrate, through practice and practical understanding, the importance of the continual development of individual, team and service wide quality improvement;

abide by relevant codes of professional practice, with the organisation taking action when codes of conduct are breached;

work flexibly to meet the needs of the service/organisation, whilst working within a culture of progressive employment practices and commitment to the Investors in People (IiP) Standards.

adhere to the Trusts smoke free policies, which prohibits smoking anywhere on Trust grounds;

being socially responsible by complying with measures that support the Trust in reducing or offsetting our environmental impact;

Identify and report risks, hazards, incidents, accidents and near misses promptly;

In addition to the Trusts own responsibilities under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Code of Practice on the prevention and control of infections and related guidance, for your safety, ALL staff (and contractors) are responsible for ensuring their work adheres to this Code in the delivery of safe patient care.

This job description is an outline of the main duties of the post. The postholder will be required to undertake other duties commensurate with the band as directed. The content of this post will be reviewed in consultation with the postholder when necessary and in line with the service developments.

For full detail of the role please see the supporting documents attached.

Special Knowledge/Skills

Essential

• Good verbal and communication skills.
• Ability to manage own caseload.
• Good negotiation skills, and problem solving skills.
• Customer service orientation.
• Effective record keeping and report writing skills to include care planning and risk assessments.
• IT skills.
• Have good team working skills. Be able to work across disciplines with an ability to predict and manage inter-disciplinary tensions and foster good working practices.

Physical Attributes

Essential

• Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post. A satisfactory sickness record over the previous 2 years (subject to the need to act with fairness and equality of opportunity, particularly where the sickness is related to a disability and/or pregnancy).

Training

Desirable

• Training and experience relating to specialist CAMHS.
• Experience of delivering training to others.

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Able to work autonomously and as part of a team.
• Commitment to multi-agency approach.
• Ability to work and make decisions under pressure.
• Calm, confident, innovative, creative and assertive.
• Clarity of decision making.
• Willingness to be flexible and adaptable in accordance with changing service priorities.
• Commitment to challenging discrimination and improving accessibility of services.
• Ability to cope calmly in a crisis.
• To demonstrate good self care and encourage the same in team members.
• A current driving licence and access to a car during the working day is essential (reasonable adjustments will be considered for any applicants who are unable to drive due to a disability).

Qualifications

Essential

• Relevant professional qualification, e.g. nursing, or other professional allied to medicine.
• Dip SW or relevant mental health profession.
• Membership of professional body.

Desirable

• Post Registration qualification e.g. degree.
• Post graduate qualification in mental health (e.g. CBT, Family Therapy, Counselling).
• A teaching and assessing qualification.

Experience

Essential

• Substantial post qualification experience, some of which must be working with Children, young people and their carers in a mental health or other complex care setting.
• Multidisciplinary team working.
• Inter-agency liaison and consultation.
• Experience of supervising/mentoring junior staff.
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and guidance e.g. NHS plan, Mental Health Legislation, Childrens act, Education Act, Working Together, Childrens NSF, Every Child Matters, etc.
• Clinical/therapeutic knowledge and skills in mental health.
• Experience in assessment and risk management and ability to implement evidence based practice.
• Proven ability to work with other agencies and disciplines and in partnership with other organisations.
• Experience of safeguarding children and young people.

Desirable

• Experience of community settings.
• Experience of working in different cultural contexts.
• Knowledge and experience of working with Equality and Diversity.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).