Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioner London 2023

By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.

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, working across both educational settings and healthcare sectors in England.

We are recruiting trainee EMHPs to join Islington’s School Wellbeing Service (SWS). The successful applicants will be passionate about mental health in schools, widening access to services and enjoy inter-agency working.

Role Description

The successful applicants will join one of our two locality teams in Islington's Schools Wellbeing Service. The teams deliver preventative and early intervention mental health work to all the borough's mainstream schools. This work includes workshops, assemblies, groups and individual interventions with children, young people, family members or school staff, as well as whole-school approaches to mental health.

The post holder will, under supervision, deliver groups, workshops and 1:1 brief therapeutic interventions with young people and/or their parents/carers. Other duties include liaison with school staff, contributing to whole-school approaches for mental health, screenings and assessments, observations, joint working, service development work (e.g. producing new workshops), clinical communication via notes, reports and letters, etc.

Dual Application Process

The EMHP posts are training positions. Any students applying for this Programme need to also secure a place on the Educational Mental Health Practitioner PG Dip course at UCL. You are required to make a separate application for the university course via https://evision.ucl.ac.uk/urd/sits.urd/run/siw_ipp_lgn.login?process=siw_ipp_app&code1=TPPMHPSINGS1&code2=0019. Please complete your course application as soon as possible.

Working for Our Organisation

The SWS is part of the national Mental Health Support Teams initiative, aiming to improve access to help and the general culture of emotional support within primary and secondary schools. This is a great time to join our service. We are a strong, well established friendly team with professionals from a wide range of therapeutic backgrounds and experiences. We are excited about developing the MHST in Islington so that more children and families can receive this vital support at an earlier stage in their schools.

We are committed to supporting EMHPs on their training journey and offer additional training opportunities and reflective spaces to support your wellbeing and further promote your development as a practitioner while working with us. We work in partnership with Whittington Health and LB Islington and as a result you will benefit from opportunities to work collaboratively with other professionals involved in early, preventive support for children and families. We are dedicated to promoting equal opportunities in our employment practice and service delivery. We are keen to recruit applicants that reflect the local community and support them to remain in post.

Job Description and Main Responsibilities

The training programme for this post will consist of academic and supervised practice learning across mental health services and educational settings, such as primary and secondary schools, and further education colleges.

Delivery of the programme will be provided through a combination of taught days within UCL in collaboration with The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, independent self-guided study days, and experience gained in education wellbeing and mainstream mental health services.

A Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioner will be expected to work under supervision as part of a dynamic mental health team in a creative environment where evidence-based interventions, new ideas, ways of working and supporting children and young people (CYP) are actively encouraged. This approach requires flexibility and adaptability, and above all a passion for working with CYP in educational settings. Over the course of the training year, the post-holder will, under supervision, develop knowledge and practice skills to employ a range of evidence-based interventions for common mental health problems via direct individual and group support for children, young people, and their parents, in line with the university expectations.

The Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioner role will:

• Work closely alongside a team of mental health professionals delivering a wide range of evidence informed interventions, under supervision.
• Develop and practice evidence-based skills under supervision to work directly with children, young people, and families.
• Develop and practice evidence-based skills under supervision to carry out holistic and child-centered mental health assessments, including risk assessments.

The Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioner is required to:

• Demonstrate the ability to work at degree level or have an equivalent level of relevant experience, with a proven record of previous learning or formal study in child development, wellbeing, or mental health.
• Experience of working with CYP, their families, and carers.
• Experience of working and liaising with a wide variety of agencies and stakeholders.
• Experience of working with CYP who have social, emotional and/or mental health difficulties.

Successful candidates will be offered a full-time educational programme specifically for the role. The course fees are fully funded, and the salary support for the job post will be funded at NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) at beginning Band 4. You will gain credits towards completing with a postgraduate degree diploma level qualification, plus guaranteed employment on completion of training, with a starting salary projected to be based on the NHS AfC Band 5 scale. For the training year, successful candidates will be employed by Islington Schools Wellbeing Service and located in educational settings.

Data Protection Notice

As you also apply for a training course that is delivered by the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and UCL, your data may be shared with them for the purpose of processing your application (shortlisting) and enrolling you onto this Programme.

Please see the Job Description and the Person Specification attachments for full details of this role.

Who You Are

Qualifications

Essential criteria:

• Full, enhanced and current satisfactory DBS disclosure for the role
• Demonstrate the ability to work at degree level or have an equivalent level of relevant experience, with a proven record of previous learning or formal study in child development, wellbeing, or mental health.

Desirable criteria:

• Further relevant degree qualification
• Teaching qualification
• Youth Mental Health First Aid trained

Knowledge Experience

Essential criteria:

• Experience of working with children and young people, their families and others
• Experience of working with CYP who have social, emotional and/or mental health difficulties
• Experience of working with children and their families in an education or healthcare setting
• Understanding of children and young people’s development, wellbeing and mental health
• Knowledge of the educational system in England

Desirable criteria:

• Experience of the delivery of specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people or their families (e.g. CBT, solution focused brief therapy)
• Knowledge of safeguarding issues
• Knowledge of capacity and consent issues including Gillick competence
• Experience of working with Looked after children or other vulnerable groups
• Knowledge of outcome measurement and analysing data for specific child and family interventions as well as service provision

Skills Abilities

Essential criteria:

• Ability to personally manage a sensitive, traumatic and potentially emotionally distressing caseload
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Computer literate. Skills in using IT, including office applications
• Demonstrate an understanding of and an ability to incorporate cultural sensitivity and responsiveness to your work with colleagues and clients
• Ability to work flexibly and adapt work to school and community based contexts

Desirable criteria:

• Ability to deliver specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people or their families (e.g. CBT, solution focused brief therapy)
• Ability to conduct group parenting programmes
• Ability to work within educational settings to increase mental health awareness within the staff group
• Ability to make an assessment of risk and to record and communicate it appropriately
• Ability take appropriate action to mitigate or manage risk
• Experience of navigating complex social systems and environments, who may have conflicting priorities or agendas

Personal qualities

Essential criteria:

• Self-motivated
• Excellent time management and organisational skills
• Team player
• Able to travel to meet the requirements of the post
• Proven commitment to continuous professional development
• Able to meet the physical requirements of the role after reasonable adjustments have been made for any illness or disability

Safeguarding Children and Adults

To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:

• Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
• Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
• Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
• Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
• Participate in required training and supervision.
• Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct

Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Application

Your application form:

1. Provide only business email address for your referees – we are unable to request references from yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail accounts.
2. Make sure you to include all evidence of where you meet the essential requirement on the jobs description as this forms the base of our shortlisting criteria.

Our processes:

1. Closing dates are given as a guide; we are within our right to close adverts early so please ensure you submit your application as soon as possible to avoid delay.
2. If you do not hear from us up to 3 weeks after the closing date of the job unfortunately this means you have not been successfully shortlisted for interview. If your require feedback on your application please contact the appointing manager detailed in the body of the advert.
3. Please check your emails regularly as all correspondence from us will be via trac.systems – occasionally these emails will go into your Junk folder.
4. Employment at Whittington Health is offered subject to successful completion of a 6 month probationary period for all staff with the exception of GMC Registered Doctors.

Other important information:

• Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.
• In submitting an application form, you authorise Whittington Health NHS Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process should you be appointed to the post.

If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks your identity and right to work documentation will be verified remotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk

Please note that during the recruitment process your Identity Documentation (i.e. passport, driving licence, visa, etc.) will be scanned using a device which recognises UV, Infrared and Machine Readable Zone security features of the documents provided.

Getting vaccinated, and getting a booster, remains the best defence against COVID-19.
We encourage and support staff to get COVID-19 vaccine and a booster dose as and when they are eligible.

Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3 rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Whittington Health NHS Trust.

The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.

We would welcome applications from individuals who are from underrepresented groups in the organisation.

Applicant Requirements

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.

Further details informal visits contact

Dr Robyn Carrington, Clinical Psychologist and Team Lead, email address: robyncarrington@nhs.net, 07521707475