Education Mental Health Practitioner Aldershot, England
Job description
Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust delivers the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service in Hampshire.
Hampshire CAMHS have a long established history of innovative and participatory practice that fully includes those accessing our services to shape and improve it. This has led Hampshire CAMHS to achieving various National Awards for our innovative and forward thinking approach. We welcome new colleagues with ideas and initiative to be part of this success.
In line with the government’s priority to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the new Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) role is an exciting opportunity to deliver evidence-based early interventions for children and young people, working across both educational settings and healthcare sectors in England.
To work as a Qualified member of a Mental Health Support Team in Aldershot schools, providing a high quality, psychological therapy service to young people, their families or carers. In addition, to support psychological practice within the team by communicating effectively about the psychological care of clients, by contributing to the supervision of psychological practitioners and trainees and less experienced psychological therapists, and by participating in systematic clinical governance. You will have successfully completed the HEE commissioned 1yr ‘Education Mental Health Practitioner’ course in order to apply.
To protect the health and safety of our staff/workers, patients, and those attending our sites, we encourage our workforce to get fully vaccinated against COVID
Sussex Partnership Trust focuses on supporting staff through supervision and training opportunities and has a track record for creating strong and cohesive teams. The Hampshire CAMHS service, like many NHS services nationally, is busy and faces challenges, with high demands on our teams.
As a Trust, we recognize the impact of the nature of our work and prioritise staff wellbeing, providing activities that promote the positive health and wellbeing of our staff such as arts projects and staff development. There are a number of forums each month for team managers to both meet together and with the wider leadership team from across the county.
The post holder will work as an autonomous responsible practitioner as their training affords and within the scope of their local job description, to engage in;
- Delivering evidence-based intervention for children and young people in education setting with mild to moderate mental health problems
- Helping children and young people within these settings who present with more severe problems to rapidly access more specialist services
- Supporting/facilitating staff in education settings to identify and where appropriate manage issues related to mental health and wellbeing
- Working with and within education environments to afford better access to specialist mental health services
Therapeutic Assessment and Intervention
- Assess and deliver outcome focused, evidence-based interventions in educational settings for children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties, working at all times in collaboration with and giving respect to the education function of the setting in which the post-holder is deployed.
- Work in partnership to support children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their parents/carers, families and educators in the self-management of presenting difficulties.
- Work in effective, evidence-based partnership with children, young people, their families and their educators in the development of plans for the intervention and agreed outcomes.
- Support and empower children, young people, their parents/carers and families and their educators to make informed choices about the interventions being offered.
- Operate at all times from an inclusive values base, which recognises and respects diversity.
- Accept referrals within educational settings according to agreed local and national and local protocols.
- Undertake and record accurate assessments of risk and operate clear risk management processes in line with locally agreed procedures including the safeguarding protocols of the educational setting and Local Safeguarding Board guidance.
- Adhere to all regulations, processes and procedures within the educational service to which the postholder is attached within the educational setting where the post-holder working including (but not limited to) HR policies, training requirements, referral protocols, and emergency procedures. Signpost referrals of children with more complex needs to a locally identified appropriate relevant service
- Through case management, supervision and any other relevant local pathway, escalate cases where the level of need or risk is beyond the scope of practice of the postholder.
- Provide a range of information and support for evidence based psychological treatments, primarily guided self-help.
- Practice, evidence and demonstrate an ability to manage one’s own caseload in conjunction with the requirements of the team.
- Attend multi-disciplinary and multi-agency meetings relating to referrals or children and young people in treatment, where appropriate.
- Keep clear, professionally coherent records of all activity in line with both health and education service protocols and use these records and outcome data to inform decision making.
- Complete all requirements relating to data collection.
- Assess and integrate issues relating to transitions, education and training/employment into the overall therapeutic process.
- Work within a collaborative approach involving a range of relevant others when indicated.
- Contribute to the development of individual or group clinical materials or training materials, and in addition to develop such materials independently as falls within own degree of competence, and under direction of the wider team.
- Training and supervision
- Continue to apply learning gained on the training program directly to practice.
- Prepare and present case load information to supervisors within the service on an agreed and scheduled basis to ensure safe practice and the governance obligations of the trainee, supervisor and service are delivered.
- Respond to and implement supervision suggestions by supervisors in practice.
- Engage in and respond to personal development supervision to improve competences and practice.
- To disseminate research and service evaluation findings in appropriate formats through agreed channels.
