MHST Clinical Lead/Practitioner Psychologist

Job overview

Band 8b MHST Clinical Lead (Practitioner Psychologist) Shape the future of children and young people’s mental health in Norfolk & Waveney.

We are looking for an exceptional and experienced Clinical Lead / Practitioner Psychologist to join our forward-thinking Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) service as a Lead Psychologist. This is a pivotal leadership role for someone who is passionate about early intervention and ready to make a lasting, system-wide impact.

As a senior leader, you will provide clinical, strategic, and professional leadership and supervision across the MHST service, ensuring that children and young people in schools and colleges receive high-quality, evidence-based care where and when they need it most.

You’ll play a key role in shaping how mental health support is delivered in educational settings, driving innovation, consistency, and excellence.

You will lead and inspire a skilled multidisciplinary workforce, championing clinical supervision, professional development, and workforce growth. Working collaboratively with partners across health, education, and the wider system, you will help steer service transformation aligned with national priorities and local needs.

Should we receive a high number of applications we reserve the right to close this vacancy at any point after 8th June 2026.

Main duties of the job

A central focus of the role will be to lead the expansion of MHST provision across Norfolk & Waveney, supporting the national goal of reaching 100% school and college coverage by 2030. This will place you at the forefront of strategic planning, partnership working, and service design at scale.

This is an exciting opportunity for a values-driven leader to:

Influence and shape early intervention services at a system level

Drive innovation and continuous improvement in CYP mental health care

Lead a passionate workforce committed to making a difference

Contribute to a nationally significant programme of transformation

If you are a dynamic, compassionate leader with a strong clinical background and a vision for transforming children and young people’s mental health services, we would love to hear from you.

Join us and help build a future where every child can access the support they need to thrive.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Responsible for the clinical work of MHST across Norfolk and Waveney. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of therapeutic practice within the service, delivered by regulated, registered and unregistered staff groups.

To provide regular supervision for a variety of roles across MHST and including Clinical Associate Psychologists within EEC.

Reporting to multiple commissioners and stakeholders, including the Department of Education, Health Education England, NHSE, the Integrated Care Board,

Lead on the roll out, expansion and delivery of the MHST program to 100% schools coverage by 2030.

To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies, contributing to and shaping as appropriate.

Propose, devise and implement clinical policies, pathways and reports for the service that embed best clinical practice

Be responsible for clinical supervision structures for staff, ensuring safe and effective service delivery.

Co-production: develop and implement a co-production plan, ensuring the ‘voice of the child/young person’ is pivotal in all aspects of clinical practice and development.

Collate and report feedback for the service from a range of stakeholders, including children and young people, implementing findings.

Promote a culture of incident reporting, leading Serious Incident investigations when appropriate and ensuring learning takes place to affect appropriate change.

The post holder must adhere to the Trust risk assessment and risk management processes and ensure adherence within the Team.

Ensure accessible management information is regularly used for service improvement and reporting via SystemOne data sets, suitable technology/systems development and in compliance with Trust Information Governance (and all relevant legislation) standards.

To present reporting of impact, outcomes and feedback as well as service productivity and lead clinical and other audits as required.

Registration and maintenance of registration throughout employment with an appropriate professional body.

Undertake mandatory training and any other training relevant to the role as required by East of England Community Health and Care NHS Trust including regular safeguarding training.

To participate in safeguarding children supervision as required within the remit of the role.

Provide patients and their families / carers with information on standards they should expect from the team.

Participate in clinical supervision on a regular basis according to professional and Trust guidelines. To actively consult and obtain relevant management and or clinical support and supervision where necessary to carry out duties.

Participate in relevant emergency preparedness process for their team.

Ensure staff within the MHST are aware of and execute their responsibilities with regard to the safeguarding children and adult’s agenda, confidentiality, Trust and professional training requirements, data protection and sharing, information governance, risk management and reporting and all relevant legislation and Trust and local policy.

Strategic development of the service within the local landscape – working with multiple partner agencies to identify gaps and determine the best use of resources to meet needs.

Please refer to JD and PS for detailed responsibilities.