Specialist Mental Health Practitioner

Job overview

The Thames Valley wide program for children and young people with complex needs is centred around the implementation of practice framework known as the framework for integrated care. It is designed to improve outcomes for a cohort of vulnerable children and young people with complex needs who experience some of the highest levels of health inequalities in society.

The framework focuses on trauma informed practice, agency working and achievement of consensus across professionals and Family by clinical formulation and support for professionals and others who are directly involved with young people.

Clinicians working within the new development will be involved in direct clinical work, interprofessional liaison and training. The scope of work and understanding of intervention will broader than that encountered within most existing CAMHS provisions.

Main duties of the job

The successful applicant will need to demonstrate a clear understanding of the flexibility and adaptability required from a service working with this group of children and young people. They will have excellent communication and interpersonal liaison skills and strong background experience in working with young people with mental health and neurodevelopmental needs in a range of different environments and settings.

The successful applicant will be expected to support in every aspect of the service to ensure high-quality service delivery to children, families and professionals. This will include contributing to, and writing up, multi agency consultation and specialist assessments, supporting the clinical lead in service development and ongoing research, and will lead in the collection of outcome data for research and service evaluation.

Applicants must have a full valid driving licence and have access to a vehicle for work. Adjustments can be considered in line with the Equality Act 2010 where required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Provide expert care to patients on their caseload. Providing skilled assessments, treatment, supervision and consultation within CAMHS.
• Provide expertise and specialist advice, supervision, guidance and consultation to other professionals delivering complex interventions and to contribute directly to young people’s assessments and treatment.
• Exercise a higher degree of personal professional autonomy.
• Make decisions where precedents do not exist, where appropriate without resource to others, and to advise and support colleagues where standard protocols do not apply.
• Draw on advice, knowledge and exercise professional skills of the highest order, some of which are likely to be highly specialist, acquired only after lengthy training, supervision and practice.
• Make and receive referrals.
• Complete advanced history taking as required with patient group
• Set an improved standards and quality in expert field, with other disciplines, the wider organisation and across organisational boundaries
• Develop professional practice of self and others, in expert field.
• Provide expert advice, support and guidance to other others around expertise in response to request from individuals, teams and full purposes of strategic planning.
• Act as a resource to others and provide facilitative support within and sometimes outside the organisation
• Contribute to the education, training and development of other clinical staff and partner agencies.
• Helped to identify and respond to learning needs that individual, team and organisational levels, focusing on experienced colleagues, particularly those who need to developed advanced knowledge and skills in this field.

We hope that the advert has given you a clear understanding of the skills we are seeking and the opportunity at hand. You will need to use the “supporting statement” element of your application form to demonstrate your suitability for this role and you should refer to the job description, person specification and the guidance notes attached to this role to help you tailor your application.

The essential and desirable criteria will be used to shortlist for interview, and you should ensure that you refer to these within your application to increase your chances of being selected for interview.

We are aware that some candidates may choose to use AI tools to support their application. We kindly remind applicants that submissions should remain an honest and accurate representation of their experience and must take care to ensure the use of AI tools does not generate an application that does not accurately reflect their knowledge, skills and values.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.