CAMHS Occupational Therapist

We have an exciting opportunity for a qualified, competent, confident, and enthusiastic Occupational Therapist to join the Wellbeing in Newham Schools Team. You will be responsible for supporting with the delivery of the Mental Health Occupational Therapy provision within schools alongside the Band 7 OT within the team. As a specialist Occupational Therapist, this role will entail assessing and delivering interventions for young people that present with mental health needs from an OT lens. Expertise on supporting the wellbeing of those with additional needs is paramount for this role.
In line with the government's priority to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the Wellbeing in Newham Schools Team 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.
The successful candidate will work across a range of primary and secondary education systems, collaborating with school staff, young people, and parents in supporting mental health and well-being needs. The postholder will be able to confidently utilise specialist OT skills to ensure that young people referred to the service receive robust holistic assessments and interventions, and can support in identification of additional needs that may need investigation with other agencies.

Main duties of the job
The post-holder will work collaboratively with a wide number of agencies, voluntary services and community interest groups to develop the ability of young people to be able to engage in occupations that are both necessary and meaningful for their mental-wellbeing. The ability to utilise creative and innovate approaches to care is paramount for this role. As part of a team with a novel OT provision, the post-holder will confidently support the lead occupational therapist in deliverance of whole school approaches such as school wide trainings, group interventions, and provide bespoke OT consultation sessions with school staff.
You will have a demonstrable track record of supporting mental health and well-being needs of young people and families. Specialist knowledge on how sensory, cognitive, and physical needs impact on mental well-being is necessary for this role. The successful candidate will be able to adapt their communication, so to engage children and young people across the developmental spectrum. You will exemplify strong risk management skill-sets.
As a band 6 OT within the team, supervision from the senior OT, and support from the clinical leads/ wider team will be provided to ensure continuous growth of your specialist skill-sets. We offer an exciting and dynamic environment where your ideas and career development will be valued. Innovative ideas that you may have for the OT provision within the team will be accepted.

Working for our organisation
Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
Overall, we welcome a candidate that is enthusiastic and dedicated to improving service initiatives for improving mental health and well-being of young people from an OT lens.

+ Prior experience of working within pediatric OT services supporting children with well-being and mental health needs.
+ Extensive knowledge of various paediatric conditions.
+ Concrete understanding of MOHO and CanMOP models of practice and how to utilise these models to support development of interventions.
+ Sound knowledge of OT interventions across the spectrum of mental illness and knowledge of which interventions are appropriate and how to apply these in a low intensity / early intervention space
+ Ability to support Band 7 OT with triaging occupational therapy referrals, prioritising these, completing evidence-based assessments and interventions to address key occupational areas of self-care, productivity and leisure
+ Ability to confidently deliver whole school trainings, group interventions, and consultation spaces within educational settings.
+ Ability to use client-centred approaches to co-producing negotiated occupational goals and evaluate these with service users collaboratively.
+ Enthusiasm for and experience of extending brief low intensity forms of help offered to children and parents around mental health needs in education settings
+ A high degree of professional autonomy and self-management and will be required to account for their professional practice through appraisal and audit
+ Motivation to implement initiatives to benefit pupils their families and education staff
+ Understanding of educational environments
+ Understanding of CBT concepts
The community served is multi-ethnic and culturally diverse and we welcome applicants who are skilled at working with the richness and complexity of this multicultural context.

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations., Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don't stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.
We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.
Our Community
We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.
Aiming High
We were rated 'Outstanding' by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated 'Outstanding' again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ's Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.
Staff and Service Users United
We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.
We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.
Diversity
ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's job share, part time or another flexible pattern.