Senior Mental Health Practitioner

Job overview

My name is Clair Booth, and I am the Clinical Team Manager for the Great Yarmouth and Waveney Child and Adolescent Mental Health Team (CAMHS) based in Great Yarmouth and also covering Lowestoft. We are looking to recruit a full time Mental Health Practitioner to be  based at Northgate Hospital in Great Yarmouth.

Norfolk is a great place to work with beautiful countryside and access to some of the best beaches in the country. Working along the East coast affords the opportunity for stunning wellbeing walks, with the City of Norwich being a stones throw away, and a commutable distance to work.

We are a compassionate and well respected team within the CAMHS service line. We have strong, shared team values and ensure that we maintain and caring and supportive work environment for our staff, maintaining a safe base, from which we can provide high quality care to our young people and their families.

The successful candidates will work with a Multi-disciplinary team comprising of Psychology, Occupational Health, Social Work and Mental Health Nursing.

We work with children, young people (0-14 years, soon to increase to 0-18) and their families, with the principal objectives of providing consultation, training, mental health assessment and short-term therapeutic interventions.

We collaborate with colleagues from health, education, social care and the voluntary sector.  We are looking for qualified Occupational Therapists, Social Workers or Mental Health Nurses.

Main duties of the job

We are looking for an experienced Mental Health Practitioner who can provide assessment and goal-focussed, evidence-based interventions to young people who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health.  The post holder will be required to offer generic mental health assessments and be part of the Duty Clinician rota for urgent response, in addition to having their own caseload.

You should have excellent communication skills and a good level of competence with ICT systems.   You should have experience of risk assessment, an understanding of formulation and the ability to work collaboratively with young people and their families.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The job will involve, but is not limited to:

* carrying out mental health assessments of young people and their families, individually or jointly with staff from other agencies

* to hold an individual caseload, and work alongside other professionals for consultation/support in a greater number of other cases, as required

* to provide specialist mental health advice to, and assessments with frontline workers where the needs of young people cannot be resolved within Getting Advice or Getting Help services

* to individually undertake direct work with children, young people and their families where clinically indicated using evidence based therapeutic interventions, to improve mental wellbeing eg: behaviour, cognitive, family, psycho-dynamic, solution based therapies

* to maintain clinical and professional responsibility for a defined caseload

* to liaise with colleagues and other professionals or agencies as required, including attending case conferences, planning meetings etc.

* to promote clinical effectiveness by the use of clinical protocols and clinical audit

* to refer service users to alternative care where detailed assessment indicates a different level or type of service

* to develop and offer training packages for multi-agency workers/professionals involved in the care of children and young people

* to ensure own knowledge and skills are updated by complying with professional registration, continuing professional development programmes and Statutory/Mandatory training

Please find attached our Job Description and Person Specification for more detail on your Key Accountabilities, then if you feel you have what it takes to make a difference in your local communities, click APPLY!