Senior CAMHS SPA Practitioner

Job overview

Due to further investment received into children’s mental health services, we have an exciting opportunity available within our CAMHS Single Point of Access team (CAMHS SPA).

Our CAMHS SPA is a new development that provides a single point of access for children and families accessing our mental health services across our South Staffordshire localities. This service aims are to process, assess and determine the mental health needs of children and young people (CYP) to ensure their needs are met with the correct service provision through liaison and multi-agency working.

The SPA is first point of clinical contact for CYP, families and referrers and offers consultation and advice prior to referral and during the triage phase.

The SPA is a multi-disciplinary team with strong links to wider CYP Mental Health, Health and Social Care services.

Our service is developing to consult with our colleagues across Health, Education and Social Care, working with our partners across South Staffordshire and neighbouring areas, to promote preventative support and develop ease of access to all services within our areas.

The CAMHS SPA is part of the Children and Families Single Point of Access (CaFSPA). The CaFSPA is currently in phase 1 of this new service development, with plans for this to grow and merge with wider children’s services to create a ‘front door’ service that will ensure our children and families journeys begin in the right place and allow for smoother transition around services.

Main duties of the job

• You will work as an autonomous practitioner providing a holistic approach to provide a high standard of clinical expertise in the assessment, planning treatment and education and advice given to patients, carers and other health and social care professionals.
• You will have ongoing responsibilities for the implementation and evaluation of the CaFSPA process, alongside assessment of young people's care where there is a greater complexity of need.
• This role will require excellent risk assessment and management skills in relation to positive risk taking and decision making to enable safe and effective responses to CYP and their families, primarily by telephone.
• You will play an integral role in developing clinical care pathways and quality standards within the CaFSPA, alongside participating in the delivery of the agreed aims and objectives of the service and identify factors which may inhibit these from being achieved. They will assist in the delivery of a high standard of care to service users referred to the service. They will implement agreed systems for the monitoring of effectiveness of care. They will play a key role in the education and management of junior staff.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information about this role, including requests for informal visits please contact Hannah Taylor- CAMHS SPA team lead on: [email protected]