Senior Mental Health Practitioner

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About the Trust

We are proud to provide high quality mental health and learning disability services, both inpatient and in the community across five boroughs of Greater Manchester - Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside and Glossop.

Our vision is for a happier and more hopeful life for everyone in our communities and our staff work hard to deliver the very best care for the people who use our services. We're really proud of our #PennineCarePeople and do everything we can to make sure we're a great place to work.

Our ambition is to maximise people's potential and we aim to promote an inclusive environment and improve the diversity of our workforce so our people truly represent the communities we serve.

All individuals regardless of race, age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership are encouraged to apply for this post. We would also encourage applications from individuals with a lived experience of mental illness, either individually or as a carer.

If you come and work for us we will offer a range of benefits and opportunities, including:

1. Generous annual leave entitlement for Agenda for Change and Medical and Dental staff.
2. Flexible working opportunities to support your work/life balance
3. Access to Continued Professional Development
4. Involvement in improvement and research activities
5. Health and Wellbeing activities and access to an excellent staff wellbeing service
6. Access to staff discounts across retail, leisure and travel

If you are Kind, Fair, Ingenious and Determined then we want you to come and join our #PennineCarePeople

https://www.penninecare.nhs.uk/values

Job overview

An exciting opportunity for a senior mental health practitioner to work within the Living Well service in Tameside & Glossop.

The post involves working collaboratively with individuals in a community setting to help them navigate and connect to a range of mental health services, community activities / services in line with their individual needs, circumstances and goals to enhance their health, wellbeing, quality of life.

Main duties of the job

Senior Mental Health Practitioners conduct biopsychosocial assessments & Initial Conversations with people presenting with mental health difficulties, social care needs & risk issues at a primary care level. The aim is to promote recovery & help people maintain their lives within their community environment.

Key Responsibilities of the Post:

An SMHP assesses risk, devises risk management plans with service users as part of the Duty function. This pathway promotes self-management to enable service users' engagement with other parts of LWT & offers advice to colleagues where necessary.

As a SMHP you will also be able to offer brief interventions (max12 wks) including devising coping strategies, problem-solving, motivational & behavioural activation work, anxiety management, risk management & suicide prevention work, medication support, promoting social & interagency support, providing psychological support & biopsychosocial education aimed at insight development, promoting self-help through resources & signposting & reviewing treatment plans with service users deemed too complex for other parts of LWT or who may not meet the criteria for secondary care services.

Key Requirements of the Person Specification: Applicants must possess RMN / RNMH / Social Worker / OT or equivalent.

Completion of Preparation for Mentorship / Practice Teacher/, is desirable together with significant post-registration experience.

Working for our organisation

We have a very exciting position for you if you are a Mental Health Professional ,your new career will not only be enjoyable but rewarding as you develop specialist skills & contribute to provide care to some of the most vulnerable people in our locality.

We are a 9-5 Monday to Friday service, which offers flexible working opportunities, hours can be negotiable.

The Team are continually seeking service development opportunities & welcomes an enthusiastic, motivated & caring Practitioner to join our busy & supportive team in Tameside & Glossop.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Team offers a comprehensive Biopsychosocial assessment for those individuals who may require secondary care services & is able to offer short term support in respect of any identified mental health difficulties if indicated.

As a Senior Mental Health Practitioner within the living well system, you will be an integral part of a MDT that meet regularly to actively case manage patients who present with multiple complex needs. you will complete mental health & risk assessments to identify patients' needs & provide short-term, low-level interventions to prevent escalation & crisis.

Essential Skills & Abilities

Comprehensive mental health & risk assessment skills Ability to deliver evidence based interventions.

Excellent communication skills, both written, verbal and I.T Skills Ability to form productive working relationships & Good organisational & prioritisation skills.

Person specification

Education/Qualifications/Experience

Essential criteria

• RMN/RNMH/Social Worker equivalent
• Evidence of ongoing CPD
• Experience of working with individuals who present to mental health services in crisis and have symptoms of mental health illness
• Proven experience of working with clients with complex needs
• Experience of working in multi-disciplinary teams

Desirable criteria

• Degree - or working towards completion
• Formal teaching qualification.
• Further training in brief psychosocial interventions
• Completion of Preparation for Mentorship/Practice Teacher/Fieldwork Educator qualification or willingness to complete
• Primary care mental health work experience
• Experienced in the use of outcome measures such as CORE, PHQ9 and GAD7
• Experience of working with a psychological model of care
• Experience of triaging referrals
• Experience of providing supervision to junior staff

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Understanding of current mental health legislation, Safe Guarding and Child Protection Legislation
• Awareness of NICE Guidance in the treatment of mental health problems and knowledge of treatments and interventions appropriate for individuals with mental health needs
• Understanding of confidentiality and data protection issues
• Knowledge of psychosocial assessment and risk assessment/management processes
• Comprehensive understanding of deliberate self-harm and appropriate management strategies

Skills and abilities

Essential criteria

• Comprehensive mental health and risk assessment skills
• Ability to contribute to the development of effective packages of care and risk management plans
• Ability to deliver a range of evidence based interventions
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
• Comprehensive I.T Skills
• Ability to form productive working relationships with service users, carers and multi-disciplinary staff
• Good organisational and prioritisation skills.

Desirable criteria

• Skills in planning, delivery and evaluation of training
• Skills in the area of audit or research

A hints and tips document is attached below for guidance on completing your application form.

Disclosure Barring Certificate check

All of our new starters, who are appointed to a post which requires a Disclosure Barring Certificate check (DBS), will be recharged for the full cost of the check (DBS checks for volunteers are free of charge).

An enhanced DBS check costs £38 and a standard check costs £18 (plus an administration charge of £3.50). If you are a substantive member of staff, the full amount will be taken from your first month's salary.

If you are a member of staff on our bank, you will need to repay the full amount from your first salary.

We encourage you to register with the DBS update service at an annual cost of £13 (this is mandatory for bank staff).

Other important information

• We are committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and recognise the importance of ensuring our diverse service user population is reflected within our workforce. Unfortunately, we know that, at present, there is underrepresentation of our communities in our workforce. We welcome applications from people from diverse communities to help us grow, learn, be better and consider brilliant innovation diverse people bring.
• Priority will be given to applications from existing NHS employees who have an at risk status
• This post is on our terms and conditions (T&Cs). If you are an existing employee currently on transferred terms and conditions (i.e. you transferred from another employer and retained their T&Cs) and you are voluntarily applying for this post; if you are successful, you will be employed on our T&Cs
• You will be informed about the progress of your application following shortlisting. Only applicants who clearly demonstrate the criteria listed in the person specification will be shortlisted for interview
• We will notify you by email if you have been shortlisted or not. Computer access is available at your local job centre or library. Please make sure you check your spam filter/junk folder. If any mail goes to your junk folder please mark it as safe
• If you would like to be considered under the disability confident scheme, you will be guaranteed an interview if you meet the essential criteria on the person specification for the post
• If you require reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process please phone us on 0161 716 3181 at the earliest opportunity. We will support you to complete your application
• We reserve the right to close a vacancy earlier than the advertised closing date if a sufficient number of applications have been received
• Unfortunately we are not able to guarantee the transfer of lease cars, or cover the costs of early termination charges. We have a strict policy on unsolicited contact from recruitment agencies. Please do not contact our recruiting managers directly.

Vaccination

COVID-19 vaccination remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course our patients from the virus when working in our healthcare settings. Whilst COVID-19 vaccination is not a condition of employment at this time, we do encourage our staff to get vaccinated. We will be checking the vaccination status of all new starters so that we can manage individual and environmental risks, and so that we can support those who may be undecided about vaccination. If you are unvaccinated there is helpful advice and information at https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/ where you can also find out more about how to access vaccination. There is a current Government consultation underway which will determine whether some new starters may need to be vaccinated.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

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.

Documents to download

• Job Description (PDF, 120.2KB)
• Person Specification (PDF, 103.1KB)
• Policy Statement on Recruitment of Ex-Offenders (PDF, 117.0KB)
• Applicant Information pack (PDF, 505.6KB)
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion pack (PDF, 588.9KB)
• Hints and tips for your application (PDF, 128.7KB)