Mental Health Support Team (MHST) Senior Practitioner

Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) support children, young people and their families that have links to identified school settings. Each designated MHST will work in collaboration with schools and other agencies who cover a population of up to 7,000 children and young people.Trailblazer sites were established in Kent in 2019, with the service aim to cover 50% of the schools across Kent and Medway by 2026. It is expected that this will increase early access to services and offer greater preventative provision.

We also work with our schools to support their development of a Whole School Approach (WSA) to emotional wellbeing and mental heath as well as their development of curriculum content to ensure pupils are taught about mental health in the classroom.

The post-holder will be expected to work closely with schools to support children and young people (CYP), their families andstaff to foster a whole school approach to mental well-being., As part of their role the post holders will be responsible for delivering interventions within schools and colleges and hold an individual caseload. The post-holder will ideally have clinical experience working with Children & Young People experiencing emotional wellbeing and mental health difficulties and be expected to deliver CBT interventions for anxiety, low mood, and behavioural problems individually and in groups.

Previous clinical experience will be considered alongside the expectations stated and in support we provide informal training and wider CPD opportunities as well a robust supervision programme to support development of low intensity CBT skills, intervention adaptation and WSA delivery.

An additional part of this role includes supervisory responsibility of junior colleagues and if not previously completed there is an opportunity to enrol on a supervisor's course (at one of our affiliated universities) which is already funded and established by the service. Supervisory training will enhance your skills to support EMHP and CWP junior colleagues to undertake their clinical roles. Within your role you will be offered additional supervision which will support your professional development.

The post-holder will be a graduate qualified health care professional (Qualification examples: Nurse, CWP, EMHP, Social Worker, IAPT CBT Therapist or OT)

We will consider part-time hours (30 hours plus) and flexible working pattern applications will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to promote a healthy work life balance.