Mental Health Practitioner - Children in Care

Job overview

Mental Health Practitioner – Children in Care

The role of the Mental Health Practitioner for Children in Care is a post within the CAMHS team with a focus on promoting the best possible mental health and emotional wellbeing for children in care within the local authority.  It resides within a small health team with a key focus on multi agency working to ensure a collaborative approach is taken across all relevant agencies.

Main duties of the job

The principal tasks will be to provide robust assessment, treatment, direction and advice for children who are showing signs of emotional wellbeing or mental health difficulties.

You will be proficient in therapeutic interventions for children and young people with presenting difficulties such as anxiety, low mood, attachment difficulties, developmental trauma, difficulties regulating emotions. There will be a focus on triage and early identification of mental health disorders collaboratively with the child or young person who are likely to have a significant level of emotional distress as a result of current circumstances, trauma and/ or adverse childhood experiences. Where needs have been assessed, supporting appropriate referrals and/or signposting to relevant agencies will be a key part of the role. You should have a sound knowledge of local resources and liaise with external services if children/young people are placed out of area and require support.

There will be a need to ensure that information and rationale for decisions made is communicated clearly to the young person, the carers, the social worker and all of those professionals involved in the care of the child. There will be a need for the development of strong professional relationships with other health staff involved in these processes. Informing parents would be considered in conjunction with the allocated social worker in all cases.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder would provide a range of specialist interventions, advice and support to young people who are identified as having, or at risk, of developing emotional, psychological or mental health issues within the current scope of MK CAMHS service provision.

To provide advice and consultation support to social workers, foster carers and others working with children/young people in Children's Social Care, or school staff.  Where appropriate the role will include enhancing social workers and carers, understanding of behavioural presentation and communication of a child or adolescent who has experienced a disadvantaged start to life.  Make appropriate recommendations for situations based on the holistic understanding of the child and encouraging others to develop their views.

The post holder will also be required to develop and deliver training to foster carers, social care staff and other professionals to facilitate and develop a better understanding of young people who may present as challenging and oppositional, who have not responded to traditional behaviour management techniques and historically have raised concerns regarding their mental health.

As a member of CAMHS Team, the post holder will be responsible for a small personal caseload, working under the professional supervision of a Senior Clinician in CAMHS.

This post will involve contributing to the supervision of other members of the team.