Occupational Therapist

Join us at an exciting time for Barnet, Haringey and Enfield Mental Health NHS Trust and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust. After three years working in Partnership, we are due to create a new Trust, to be known as the North London NHS Foundation Trust on 1 November 2024, subject to Secretary of State approval. Join us to be part of the North London Way as we:
+ Collaborate at every level by living our Values to create the right conditions for us all to work together
+ Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care
+ Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes
+ Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high quality care across all our services
+ Ensure that research, Quality Improvement and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services
+ Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do
We look forward to welcoming you to the new North London NHS Foundation Trust, where we work in the North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.
Our new trust website is: Home | North London Mental Health Partnership, This is a unique opportunity to work in collaboration and contribute in the delivering of an innovative pathway, within CET/Step and Thrive. CET works with age adults (18 to 65 years old) who are impacted by severe and enduring mental health issues. Step and Thrive is a new pathway being developed as part of the Community Engagement Team and wider community transformation of adult mental health services. This service will provide accessible, community-based support in the form of psychologically and OT informed activities, groups and social spaces that address the holistic well-being needs (e.g. emotional, social, occupational, practical, etc.) that contribute to poor mental health. This is a co-produced service that blends psychological and OT expertise alongside lived experience to ensure that support is accessible, relevant and effective. The service draws largely on community psychology, narrative, trauma-informed and attachment-based principles. The service seeks
to create community integration by working alongside community organizations and supporting people to access relevant and sustainable support outside of the NHS., The post holder will support colleagues to provide a comprehensive group offer, including therapeutic and life skills groups. They will assist in the effective delivery and co-ordination of a comprehensive offer of psycho-educational, practical and other therapeutic group and individual interventions working in partnership with voluntary and third sector organizations and co-producing with user groups and experts by experience. The post holder will contribute to evaluation and development of Step and Thrive and support the Manager and the Lead OT in developing the occupational therapy contribution to the service.
The post holder will provide effective enabling interventions within a multidisciplinary team setting and have a caseload of people recovering from complex mental health problems who are living in the community. They will also support with group activities that is run within CET/Step and Thrive and assess service user's needs using Dialogue Plus tool. The Post holder will be supported to devise a entered care-plan, implement and evaluate these in collaboration with individual service users and with their carer's and assist them to identify and link to helpful community resources.
The post holder will work closely with the Team manager, Occupational Therapist, Psychologist, and other members of Step and Thrive team to provide an effective and reliable service which is responsive to service users' individual needs.

Working for our organisation
The partnership between Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) is going from strength to strength since it was originally established in 2021 forming the North London Mental Health Partnership.
Why choose to join the Partnership?
+ We believe that by working together, our two Trusts can achieve more for the residents of North Central London and our patients than we can by working apart.
+ Deliver the best care using the most up-to-date practise in supporting those with mental health illnesses.
+ Transforming and creating a positive environment for our service users, staff and visitors.
+ Creating and working together to become a great place to work for all our staff.
+ We offer flexible working, a wide range of health and wellbeing initiatives, NHS Pension and so much more.
+ Generous Annual Leave Allowance
+ NHS Discounts in a large variety of retail stores and services.
+ We have excellent internal staff network support groups.
The postholder will need to be comfortable working in an environment of complex matrix management arrangements and will at all times behave and align with our Trusts' values and cultural pillars:
+ We are kind
+ We are respectful
+ We work together
+ We keep things simple
+ We empower
+ We are proudly diverse
The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis., 1. To utilise relevant and appropriate occupational therapy techniques, concepts and theories within day-to-day practice, such as the MOHO, the Remotivation Process and activity analysis.
2. To act as link worker for identified service users accessing Step and Thrive. This will include carrying out initial meetings, review meetings/phone calls and gathering feedback from service users on the group programme and their experience in CET/ Step and Thrive. This is not a care-co-ordinator role but the postholder will be allocated cases to support with additional needs such as financial support, housing support, medication management, etc. However, the role will include signposting service users to relevant community services and activities.
3. Using an evidenced based approach to screen referrals to the Step and Thrive service, develop personalised goals with service users utilising Dialog+ and plan the service user's involvement in the group therapy programme and any follow-up individual support and signposting.
4. To adapt activities and assessment to facilitate persons with Cognitive difficulties, Language difficulties, Social skills deficits and Challenging behaviour, to work with interpreters where required
5. To liaise with third sector organisations and NHS departments to support service users to engage in meaningful community activities in a safe and graded manner.
6. To plan, co-facilitate and evaluate therapeutic group interventions to address service users' goals and clinical needs.
7. To maintain a flexible approach to treatment sessions, modifying activities, according to the fluctuating clinical presentation of the service user.
8. To attend multi-disciplinary clinical meetings, to support and share information regarding professional practice with other disciplines and work in collaboration to provide a coordinated and effective service.
9. To actively contribute to the risk assessment process:
- To consider all aspects of risk when considering treatments and advise the team accordingly
- To complete and maintain risk assessment documentation as required
- To assess the therapy environments in relation to risk when planning and running treatment sessions
- To ensure appropriate staffing is available to run treatment sessions safely
- To advise other team members on the management of risk
- To obtain agreement from the team/Band 7 OT before engaging clients in any activity that may require therapeutic risk taking.
10. To be aware of current legislation regarding the safeguarding, and to have a thorough understanding of the Trust's policies in relation to them.
11. To ensure that relevant records, reports and treatment statistics are kept up to date and to a competent standard in line with professional guidelines, Trust policy, performance requirements and established service systems.
12. To maintain adequate electronic clinical records and to write specific occupational therapy records as necessary.
13. To be involved in service wide initiatives and developments as delegated by the Lead OT.
14. Liaise with external agencies and BEH trust services to support individuals in transition back to work, education or other meaningful and purposeful occupations in the community.
15. To regularly work with clients in the community and at their accommodation when required. To complete preceptorship programme if this has not already been accomplished.
MANAGERIAL RESPONSIBILITIES
1. To work with senior staff; CET Manager, Lead OT Manager and Lead Psychologist in Step and Thrive.
2. To supervise junior staff and students as required and assist in the induction of new team members as delegated by Lead OT.
3. To encourage good staff communication and participation in staff meetings, teaching sessions and multi-disciplinary meetings and take turns in presenting.
4. To work in alignment with the operational policy and other relevant procedures and protocols.
5. To maintain regular statistical information for timely submission as required by the service and Trust.
6. To be actively involved in service development and quality improvement, including completing outcome measures for the group programme and collecting and analysing feedback from service users.
7. Be responsible for following Trust procedure on petty cash.
8. To manage the duties and responsibilities associated with a clinical caseload within required time constraints.
9. To be considerate to and work within principles of sustainability - giving consideration to financial, social and environmental impacts of service delivery.