Sefton MHST B6 Mental Health Practitioner

Job overview

Band 6 - Mental Health Practitioner

37.5 Hours per week

Sefton Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) at Alder Hey are looking for a new Mental Health Practitioner to join our team.

As a B6 Mental Health Practitioner (MHP) you will work across a range of educational, healthcare and community settings to provide early intervention/evidence based interventions for children and young people and their families, enabling children and young people to access support in schools.

The successful candidates will undertake direct work with children and young people, families and carers as well as education providers.  In addition, the post holder will deliver training and work with education providers to develop the Whole School and College Approach. The post holders may also provide supervision to our Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP’s).

If you are a current B5 EMHP you will need to submit a KSA as part of this process.  Please submit your completed KSA to [email protected] and [email protected] and refer to this in your application form.

Previous applicants need  not apply

Main duties of the job

To communicate to the client and family, knowledge of therapeutic  processes, confidentiality and available options involved in their assessment and care plan, to enable them to engage appropriately from a position of informed consent. This will sometimes include communication about highly sensitive material and outcomes.

Utilising analytical skills, specialist knowledge and experience provide a comprehensive assessment and formulation of the presenting problem taking into account the child’s educational attainment, chronological/ developmental stage, inner world/ emotional wellbeing, the mental health of the child’s parents, the family dynamics and environment, and the broader social context including school.

Develop a planned programme of intervention utilising behavioural, cognitive, psychodynamic and systemic perspectives as indicated by the formulation, the needs of the client and the evidence base.

Provide individual, couple, family and group interventions as appropriate as part of a client's integrated, therapeutic programme.

Undertake with supervision/consultation, case management of cases of some severity, risk and complexity, co-ordinating multi-disciplinary inputs and working in partnership with other agencies where appropriate.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will provide a substantial contribution to the clinical work of the team, including accepting, prioritising, assessing, and treating referrals of children and their families. Initially this will be at a level to be agreed with the candidate but over time they will take full case management responsibility for their case load.

In addition, they may provide consultation, under supervision, to professionals from other services and participate in service development. The proportion of direct clinical work, consultation and service development work undertaken will be negotiated with the clinical team manager and the professional lead.