Job summary
The MHST is looking for qualified Educational Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) or Children's Wellbeing Practitioners (CWP) who have experience of working clinically with children and young people in a setting such a CAMHS and/or within an educational setting. If you wish to join an exciting and outstanding school based Mental Health Support Team (MHST) please apply!

Please note that this is not a training post and applicants must have completed a post graduate qualification.

The post-holder will work in the West Area, in one of the following teams:

• Dacorum - Astley Cooper School
• St Albans - Marlborough Science Academy, St Albans

We offer a welcoming, supportive and flexible environment using innovation and creativity to reach children and young people across an expanding number of educational settings and have built solid working relationships with each setting.

Please state your team base preference in your application.

Main duties of the job

• You will work alongside trainee EMHP's, EMHPs/CWP's, Senior Practitioners and a Team Leader.
• You will provide early interventions to children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health concerns in educational settings. Typically, the focus of work is anxiety, low Mood and behaviour.
• You will work with people of different cultural backgrounds and ages, and should be committed to equal opportunities.
• This post affords opportunity for contribution to service development. The Hertfordshire MHST offers plenty of opportunity for career development.

About us
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from the Care Quality Commission.

Our family of over 4,000 members of staff provide health and social care for people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. Everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout:

Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.

Job responsibilities

• You will develop and maintain professional relationships with education staff.
• You will be on site at allocated educational settings each day of the week.
• You will provide 1-1 interventions such as low intensity CBT (guided self-help) for children, young people, parent/carers and school staff,
• You will work with group interventions.
• You will facilitate workshops for children, young people, parent/carers and school staff.
• You will work in drop-in surgeries for children, young people and school staff.
• You will facilitate co-production to support service development,
• You will help support the team in resource development,

For a more detailed description of the role, please see attached JD and PS.

Qualifications/Education/Training
Essential

• Successful completion of the HEE commissioned 1yr 'Education Mental Health Practitioner' or the 'Child and Young Persons Psychological Wellbeing Practice' course with experience of working with child, young people and families.
• Experience of working clinically with children and young people in a setting such a CAMHS and/or within an educational setting

Desirable

• A further relevant degree qualification
• Teaching qualification
• Youth Mental Health First Aid trained

Previous Experience
Essential

• Experience of working with children and young people, their families, and others.
• Experience of working and liaising with a wide variety of agencies and stakeholders.
• Experience working in a service which has agreed targets in place demonstrating clinical outcomes.
• Experience in using an electronic clinical records and data collection system.
• Experience of working with children and young people who have social, emotional and/or behavioural difficulties, and those who have experienced a mental health problem
• Experience of working with anxiety disorders, affective (mood) disorders.
• Experience of the delivery of specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people, or their families (e.g., CBT, solution focused brief therapy).

Desirable

• Experience of working with children and their families in a healthcare and education setting.
• Experience of monitoring and recording outcome measures for children's emotional wellbeing.
• Experience of navigating complex social systems and environments, who may have conflicting priorities or agendas.
• Experience of working with looked after children.
• Experience of working with other vulnerable groups.

Skills/Knowledge/Ability
Essential

• Demonstrates an understanding of anxiety, depression, and challenging behaviour and how it may present in universal services
• Demonstrates understanding of the need to use evidence based psychological models and how it relates to this post.
• Knowledge of capacity and consent issues including Gillick competence.
• Knowledge of educational environments.
• Knowledge of safeguarding issues.
• Knowledge of the functional operation of specialist CAMHS teams.
• Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health interventions with children/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 assess risk and to record and communicate it appropriately
• Ability to take appropriate action to mitigate or manage risk.
• Ability to teach others about mental health issues.
• Ability to conduct other group therapeutic interventions with children and their families.

Desirable

• Knowledge of factors affecting acceptability and accessibility of mental health care.
• Demonstrates knowledge of the stressors young people may encounter in an educational setting and the impact that these can have on mental health
• Knowledge of the school's safeguarding procedures and who the Designated Safeguarding Lead, (DSL), is in each establishment that they work in.

Communication Skills
Essential

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Able to write clear reports and letters.
• Ability to work within a team and foster good working relationships
• Ability to use clinical supervision positively and effectively
• Ability to facilitate psychoeducation sessions to professionals (e.g. teachers)
• Ability to deliver interventions to groups (young people and parent/carer groups).
• Skills in delivering Guided Self-Help interventions.

Desirable

• Able to develop good therapeutic relationships with young people

Analytical Skills
Essential

• Ability to be self-reflective, whilst working with service users, in own personal and professional development and in supervision.
• Ability to assess risk assessments and understanding of the importance of assessing risk.

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.

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website.