Job Summary
HCRG Care Group are looking to recruit Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners to continue to improve children and young people’s mental health services in Essex.

This is a training position where you will undertake training through Anna Freud alongside working in our Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Services.

The Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) role has been developed by NHS England as part of the Children and Young People’s Psychological Trainings (formerly CYP Improving Access to Psychological Therapies – CYP IAPT) programme.

The course focuses on working within community and primary care settings to increase access to support for children, young people and families. You’ll be trained as a CWP to offer evidence-based interventions like low intensity support and guided self-help.

This course enables you to support children and young people with mild to moderate:

• Anxiety (working with primary and secondary school pupils, parents and carers)
• Low mood (adolescents)
• Common behavioural difficulties (working with parents and carers).

Job Details
Location: Colchester
Contract Type: Fixed Term - Full Time
Salary: £28,500
Weekly contracted hours: 37.5
Closing Date: 22 October 2026
Reference: HCRGCG/TP/171506/20950

Applicants will need to be ready to start work in early-mid January 2027. Positions cannot be offered to candidates unless they are available for the start date.

Please note that applications for this position is a dual process. Prospective candidates must apply to the university course at the same time as application to this role. A standard recruitment process will follow, with our shortlisted candidate information being shared with the university. The university will check their application portal, confirm candidates’ course eligibility and report this to the service. The service will create a final shortlist with this information and will offer to the applicant successful at the job interview (subject to final university checks).

You will need a Driving license and use of vehicle for work purposes

Package Description
You will feel valued as a Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner Trainee within HCRG Care Group, receiving access to exclusive rewards and benefits including:

• A salary of £28,500 with access to our group pension
• Free tea, coffee and milk at your base location
• Membership of My Reward Hub, giving you access to discounts on every day purchases like grocery shopping as well as cashback and voucher offers for treats for you and those special to you
• Access to your wages as you earn them to help cover life’s emergencies and avoid overdraft fees or high interest rates
• Online and face to face help with your mental and physical wellbeing – from healthy recipes and activity challenges through to post trauma support, legal, debt and life management help, as well career coaching and counselling
• Access to eLearning, bespoke career pathways and opportunities for continuing professional development through our ‘Outstanding’ learning and development team, The Learning Enterprise
• An open, just culture where you’re encouraged to have and implement ideas which can help us deliver our purpose: changing lives through transforming health and care – backed up by at least £100,000 of ringfenced innovation funding each year

Main Responsibilities
We are seeking to recruit 2 graduate level practitioners to provide guided self-help therapy and parenting interventions.

These posts are fully funded for a one year.

You will learn:

• Evidence-based and collaborative practice
• Availability and awareness of evidence-based interventions
• Goal-focused, client-centred interventions using feedback tools to facilitate collaboration between professionals, young people and families, leading to more personalised care
• Giving children, young people and families a voice and influence
• Cross-agency collaboration between health, social care, voluntary and independent sectors
• Working with partner organisations to reduce stigma of mental health and improve understanding of the importance of emotional wellbeing
• Making services accountable by monitoring and sharing outcome data with young people, families and commissioners
• Be trained to offer consultations and training to colleagues from partner agencies
• Be introduced to a range of outcome and feedback measures used in CYP Psychological Trainings (PT), and review and interpret them with children, young people, parents and carers
• Develop an understanding of the core principles of participation and collaboration, and learn how to integrate this into your work

Assessment
You’ll be assessed through presentations, reflective analysis, a poster, a case report and video clips of your clinical practice.

This programme emphasises putting skills into practice and consolidating learning. You will develop a portfolio of a range of case work over the year, aiming for a minimum of 30 pieces of case work.

The post holder will attend all university based taught and self-study days required by the education provider, as specified within the agreed national curriculum and work in the service for the remaining days of the week using their newly developed skills.

The PgDip CWP training programme will take place over 12 months. There are approximately 64 teaching days in the year, split between three terms:

• Term one: three days per week
• Term two: two days per week
• Term three: one day per week

During university holidays, you’re expected to work full time in your service. Trainees will have the usual annual leave allocation in line with HCRG Care Group Policy.

The Ideal Candidate
Please note that you will need to submit an application to University for a place on the programme, in addition to the job application that you make with us.

Please apply for the university course via the link provided in the advert.

If you have any questions related to the course, please contact cwp.admin@annafreud.org

Ideal candidates will:

• Hold a second-class or higher bachelor’s degree from a UK university in a relevant subject (e.g. psychology, education, childhood development, social work)
• Hold an overseas qualification of an equivalent standard in a relevant subject
• Hold a degree in any subject with further training or experience in a relevant field (e.g. teaching, TA, learning support, HCA, youth work, counselling)

You will also need to be confident using IT systems and be able to demonstrate working knowledge of Microsoft Office packages i.e. Outlook, Word, Excel.

For any queries related to the role please contact the hiring team at Angela.Mooney@hcrgcaregroup.com

Safeguarding: As you’d expect, safeguarding and protecting the children, young people and vulnerable adults that we work with is of the utmost importance so we have policies and procedures in place to promote safeguarding and safer working practices and everyone who joins the team is subject to a safer recruitment process, including the disclosure of criminal records and vetting checks.

Equal opportunities: We’re committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from a broad, diverse range of people who want to join our team. We’re a Disability Confident Committed company.