CASUS Senior Substance Misuse Nurse Practitioner

Job overview

CASUS is a small multidisciplinary team of enthusiastic professionals who support  some of our most vulnerable and under-served young people in the Cambridgeshire area.

We work primarily with young people who are using substances, we offer a comprehensive, holistic, needs led assessment to all our clients and then work in a bespoke way to support them to effect the changes they are seeking around their substance use.

Substance use is seen as a ‘red flag’ for multiple vulnerabilities and we offer support in every domain of the young persons life including mental health, relationships, education, employment, training etc.

We also deliver training to professionals and education around substances and harm minimisation to our secondary schools.

Our work is underpinned by the AMBIT model: Adaptive Mentalization Based Integrative Treatment (AMBIT) | Anna Freud

Main duties of the job

To provide treatment and interventions as part of the Cambridgeshire Child and Adolescent Substance Use Service - CASUS, a multi disciplinary team working with children, young people and their families to address drug and alcohol use and cooccurring mental health problems, including the impact of adult substance misuse on children.

The post holder will offer advice and consultation on the drug and alcohol needs of service users to colleagues and partner agencies and to other, non professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures. The team uses AMBIT -a mentalization based multi component framework

The post holder will assist the Clinical Lead and Team Manager in the provision of clinical leadership, acting on behalf of and to deputise, as directed and in their absence and provide quality evidence based treatment advice, support and care for service users drug and alcohol needs and to their carers within a community setting. Working in conjunction with the Clinical Lead and the Team Manager to set, maintain and audit clinical standards in adherence to local and national priorities as well as having a working knowledge of local, national policies and legislation which govern current service provision.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please note for this role you will be required to travel independently around the county meeting strict time deadlines. You will need to hold a full UK driving licence* and have use of a vehicle. You cannot use public transport for this role as this is not a reliable form of transport and will not allow you to meet service needs. Please confirm in your application that you meet the specified criteria.

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities

• To work as an integral member of the CASUS team, using  AMBIT approach  -  Adolescent Mentalization Based Integrative Therapy - with young people and families,  to undertake comprehensive assessment of substance use, risk and needs.    2.    To plan, implement and evaluate packages of care for young people to address their identified substance use needs and their mental health needs. 3.    To provide substance specific interventions such as information, advice, psychoeducation, reduction planning, harm reduction advice and relapse prevention.   4.    To liaise and formulate care closely with other individuals and organisations that form part of the network that is involved with a young person and family   such as Children’s Services Locality teams, Social Care teams, Education providers , Youth Offending Service, CAMH, Primary Care, third sector  agencies.  5.    To participate in working collaboratively with other Trust services and external agencies to provide seamless care for service users.  6.    To promote the team’s implementation of the AMBIT approach through gained mentalization based expertise, practice and role modelling.   7.    To provide a range of evidenced based specialist therapeutic interventions, such as Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavioural interventions, Systemic Family interventions and solution focused interventions.   8.    To deliver interventions in CPFT settings, education, community, other health settings and at home.   9.    To deliver targeted and specialists substance misuse interventions to identified individuals and groups of young people.  10.    To promote the wider addressing of substance misuse needs of young people by providing support, consultation and training to the children’s services workforce.

*DVLA have a number of reciprocal arrangements with overseas countries, for further information please visit the DVLA website