Senior Education Mental Health Practitioner - East Suffolk

Job overview

Passionate about the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people? National conversation increasingly focuses on young people’s mental health, now is the time to be at the forefront of the development of these services. We are excited to be recruiting a Senior Education Mental Health Practitioner to work in an innovative service in Suffolk: the Mental Health Support Team (MHST). MHSTs are based within education settings, ensuring children and young people receive faster access to earlier mental health support. You will be one of the key senior clinicians in this service.

The vacancy is in our East Suffolk MHST, based in Ipswich.

This role is suitable for a range of professional backgrounds and we encourage applicants from nursing, social work, occupational therapy, psychotherapy, experienced (two years post-qualified) EMHPs and CWPs. This list is not exhaustive: If you have the relevant qualifications, experience and skills in children and adolescent mental health we encourage you to have a conversation with us and consider applying.

Main duties of the job

In this role you will support and provide a high-quality service to children and young people (and their families) experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties, through early intervention and offering the right support at the right time. You will work across a range of education settings.

You will be responsible for supervision of Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) and potentially for Trainee EMHPs which will include supporting them through their training and beyond.  You will offer assessment and direct delivery of evidence-based interventions to support children and young people referred to the service. You will need to utilise skills and knowledge of CBT and child and adolescent mental health practice. You will also implement whole school/college approaches to mental health through collaboration and coproduction with the school/college community.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

A job in the Suffolk MHSTs will inevitably be challenging and demanding at times, but it will also be immensely rewarding and provide you with great opportunities to make a genuine difference to the lives of others. You will join a team that has developed a caring, creative and hard-working environment; your ideas about how this new service continues to develop and grow will be highly valued.

There is a big emphasis within the team around CPD and we will ensure that you continue to access training and supervision to develop your own practice and further your career ambitions.

We would welcome any informal conversations about these roles. Please do contact us for more information.

The vacancy is 35 hours per week substantive post

Please note we also have another advert for a 6 month FTC -  37.5 hour per week post in  the same team.

Interviews are anticipated to take place in mid January 2026

For further details regarding the role, please see attached job description and person specification.