Senior Mental Health Practitioner

An opportunity has arisen for a Senior Mental Health Nurse to join our multi-disciplinary team. As a Senior Mental Health Practitioner, the post holder will provide high standards of evidence-based client-centered care to children and young people with mental health (CYPMH) problems within the THRIVE Framework for service delivery.

The post holder will be expected to provide interventions, advice, consultation, and supervision to both colleagues and external partner agencies in line with THRIVE and clinical competency.

As the post is identified within the CYPMH strategy, it is expected the role will continue to develop in line with national and local initiatives.

This post is subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) Check with children's and adult's barred list.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will demonstrate an attitude that respects and values service users and their carers. The post holder will embrace the core values of the organisation and adopt the principles of Recovery and THRIVE. These principles will recognize the need to:

1. Promote safe practices
2. Value the aims of service users
3. Work in partnership and offer meaningful choice
4. Be optimistic about the possibilities of meaningful change
5. Value social inclusion

The team promotes the Thrive model of service delivery and is continually developing innovative and creative practice, so the successful candidate will share our enthusiasm and hardworking approach.

About us

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales, and the Midlands.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health, including mental health, learning disability, addiction, and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable, and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce costs as we do so.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

The toll for the Mersey Gateway Bridge will be paid along with regular travel expenses.

Job responsibilities

CLINICAL

1. To hold a caseload of both specialist and generic work depending on clinical competence and experience.
2. To undertake assessments, treatment, and consultation work based upon a conceptual framework and employing research-based evidence.
3. To provide direct therapeutic interventions in line with the grading of the post, including assessments, formulation, and therapeutic input into children, young people, and families referred into the service.
4. Undertake risk assessments and care plans accordingly, in line with the THRIVE framework.
5. To work in ways that are sensitive to the needs of children and young people families from a wide range of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
6. To be responsible for the screening of referrals to children and Young Peoples services.
7. To participate directly in the team's duty rotas.
8. To exercise responsibility and autonomy, within supervisory, managerial, and accountability structures, for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of clients.
9. To deliver care coordination, ensuring effective assessment, care planning, and risk management processes are maintained.
10. To produce a clinical formulation and intervention plan founded on evidence-based practice in cooperation with the child, young person, and carers.
11. To hold responsibility for standards of clinical practice within the area of specialist knowledge.
12. To work jointly and collaboratively with other team members in order to enhance and develop the provision of services to young people and their families.
13. To provide consultation, advice, and guidance to junior colleagues and promote effective multi-agency work.
14. To contribute theoretical knowledge to the process of managing risk within the multi-agency network.
15. To maintain clear and comprehensive electronic clinical records, ensuring information is accurate and complies with Data Protection Act and professional body and Trust standards.

COMMUNICATION

1. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner information concerning the assessment, formulation, and treatment plans of clients and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both multi and uni-disciplinary care.
2. To attend Child Protection Case conferences as a representative from children and young peoples mental health services.
3. To provide and receive highly complex, sensitive, or contentious information to children, young people, families, and other professionals within young peoples services.
4. To communicate effectively with children, young people, and their carers, when in crisis and in challenging family situations.
5. To organize and facilitate multi-agency meetings and reviews.
6. To elicit highly sensitive information using engagement/communication skills appropriate to the young person's stage of development.
7. To work as part of an integrated multi-professional team, ensuring good communication and working relationships with other professionals.
8. To provide written reports detailing the progress of the mental health intervention.

TEACHING, TRAINING AND SUPERVISION

1. To participate in regular supervision, engage in reflective practice, and commit to continued development.
2. To provide training to other professionals to improve mental health knowledge and skills in line with the transformation of children and young peoples mental health services.
3. To provide specific training and/or presentations to other agencies, statutory and voluntary, and promote and deliver specialist training programmes.
4. To contribute to training placements for a range of professional disciplines from different backgrounds so that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies, and experience to contribute effectively to positive change.
5. To assess trainees' competencies and write placement reports for trainees in line with Trust and professional body regulations.
6. To work collaboratively with partner agencies within the principles of THRIVE.
7. To maintain registration/accreditation requirements in accordance with the appropriate professional body in line with their professional qualification.
8. To be accountable for own clinical practice and professional behaviour.

MANAGEMENT, POLICY AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT

1. To identify priorities within and initiatives within the service and advise managers on the level of resources for service development.
2. To contribute to the services' evidence-based practice by engaging with audits and evaluations as appropriate.
3. To contribute to recruitment processes by assisting with shortlisting, interviewing, and the induction of recruited staff.
4. To support the workload of colleagues within the service through co-working practices.
5. To contribute to service developments.

RESEARCH AND SERVICE EVALUATION

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of the evidence base in relation to mental health knowledge and other interventions. To contribute to planning and implementing systems for evaluation and monitoring of therapeutic practice and outcomes of clinical work within the service. Participate in research, evaluation, and audit in response to the clinical and professional interest of the post, and to monitor standards, quality, and consumer reaction to the provision of services in accordance with NICE guidance.

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

1. To receive and engage in regular clinical supervision in accordance with Trust Clinical Governance Standards and the Code of Practice and ethical guidelines of the professional body.
2. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice through active participation in internal and external CPD training in consultation with the post holder's service manager to meet professional body requirements for CPD and registration.
3. To contribute to the development of best practice in the service by taking part in regular supervision and appraisal and maintaining awareness of current developments in the field.
4. To maintain professional body registration.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Must have qualification in at least one of the following areas: Individual or group Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Person-centred counselling, Systemic Family Practice, Webster Stratton, Incredible years/parenting groups professional.
• Must have professional qualification and registration with an appropriate accrediting body (i.e., HCPC / BACAP), or equivalent from the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) approved accredited register.
• Degree or equivalent level of experience.
• Post Graduate or equivalent level of experience.
• Core Professional qualification in one of the following areas: Nursing, Social work, Psychology, Occupational therapy.

Knowledge/Experience

• Experience of mental health assessments and therapeutic interventions with children and young people with mental health problems and their families.
• Skilled in the ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing, clinical sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of patient groups that reflect the full range of clinical severity including a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experienced in and the ability to undertake case management and the supervision of students as required.
• Knowledge and skills in the complete range of approaches within the field as required to meet the needs of different patients and settings.
• Level of knowledge of the mental health needs of children and adolescents.
• Experience in providing risk assessments.
• Must demonstrate the ability to be self-reflective and to organize own supervision appropriately.
• Ability to work within a culturally diverse community in a wide variety of contexts including highly specialist skills for working in settings outside the clinic.
• Ability to take full clinical responsibility for patient care and treatment, both as a care coordinator and within the context of a multi-disciplinary team.
• Evidence-based and reflective practice.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist therapies in specific difficult-to-treat groups.
• A level knowledge of theory and practice of specialist therapy/interventions.
• Experience of delivering teaching and training.
• Experience in consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Information technology and management skills using word processing, spreadsheets, database, and presentation software.
• Level of knowledge and/or training in other psychological therapies.
• Knowledge and skills in providing consultation to other professionals and non-professional groups.

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change-oriented

Skills

• Interpersonal skills of a high level to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing, in order to convey clinically sensitive information to family members of all ages and to a wide range of lay and professional persons, within and outside of the NHS.
• Demonstrate the ability to coordinate and lead a multi-agency care plan/risk management plan.
• Knowledge of legislation and strategic frameworks and their implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the full range of client groups.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.