Senior Mental Health Practitioner: Cared for Childre

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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

The postholder will work as a specialist practitioner supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health needs of cared for children living in Oldham.

Main duties of the job

The role will focus on supporting children and young people who are cared for, as well as their professional support network. The role will focus on supporting the team around a cared for child understand and meet their emotional needs via consultation and training, as well as offering direct assessment and therapeutic work when indicated.

The postholder will liaise closely with children's social care, fostering, residential care professionals and education staff to support trauma and relational informed care planning and decision making. The postholder will also provide advice and supervision to CAMHS colleagues regarding understanding and supporting cared for
children.

Working for our organisation

At Pennine Care you'll do more than join something - you'll be valued for who you are; you'll be making a difference and be part of something good and important.

In the latest NHS staff survey, we were ranked as the best place to work out of all the mental health and learning disability trusts in the North West.

Our colleagues are the beating heart and pride of our organisation. Everyone contributes towards our vision of a happier and more hopeful life for everyone in our communities.

Our strong values of kindness, fairness, ingenuity and determination guide us - they are fundamental to who we are, wherever we are.

Equality diversity and inclusion is at the top of our agenda. We believe that a diverse, inclusive and engaged culture is vital; that everyone's value should be recognised and respected.

We proactively challenge injustices, and are the only Trust in the North West to publicly recognise our commitment to becoming anti-racist and supporting our transgender and non-binary colleagues. We also have thriving staff networks to make sure everyone has a voice.

We've got big ambitions for the future and a clear path to get there. You'll be supported to achieve and upskill, with opportunities to learn and progress.

We care for our colleagues and offer a range of health and wellbeing support; such as a dedicated wellbeing service, flexible working options for work-life balance, plus regular wellbeing sessions and courses.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the job description and person specification for detailed information about this role. We welcome enquires to discuss the role further.

Person specification

Education/Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Professional qualification required for service area in Social Work Degree /Dip SW.
• Masters level, or equivalent, training in specific psychological therapy (e.g. RMN, Mental Health Social Worker, OT, PWP, HIT, Clinical or Counselling Psychology)
• Registration with an appropriate recognised professional body e.g. UKCP, BABCP, HCPC

Desirable criteria

• Post qualifying certificate (e.g., ACCA).
• Management qualification (MBA, DMS, NVQ Level 4, Care management)
• Additional specialist post qualifications in child mental health and/or attachment and/or trauma.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Extensive demonstrable post qualifying experience of working within all aspects of social work with families and young children.
• Substantial experience of working with families with young children and infants presenting with emotional difficulties, including, family relationship problems.
• Experience of assessing and intervening around child protection issues.
• Experience in developing formulations with children and families with complex needs, in particular attachment and trauma needs
• Managing a caseload and associated professional activities under supervision.
• Experience of providing clinical supervision and line management to team members.
• Experience of teaching and liaising with other professional groups suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of attachment and complex developmental trauma assessment, formulation and treatment of children and families across a range of care settings.
• Experience of offering intervention via consultation

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of child development, mental health, attachment and trauma.
• Knowledge of psychological therapies relevant to cared for children and young people.
• Knowledge of relevant legislation, regulations and National Policies in relation to children, young people and families.
• Knowledge of Child Safeguarding issues and familiarity with local and national child protection procedures.
• Knowledge of the systemic, developmental and psychological issues within the context of young people in care.
• Specific theoretical knowledge related to social work and families. Knowledge of assessment and care planning process and procedures relevant to cared for children.
• Understanding of principles and methods of clinical audit research and service evaluation.

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist psychological therapies in working with attachment difficulties and complex developmental trauma
• Knowledge and understanding the cared for children systemic context
• Sound knowledge of changing trends within health and social care

Skills

Essential criteria

• Ability to work in partnership with service users, carers, colleagues and other agencies
• Ability to develop and deliver interventions both individually and systemically at various levels, including adapting communication to meet the needs of cared for children, staff teams or carers as well as being able to write complex, highly technical reports to families and professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS and CSC.
• Ability to identify and manage risk in individuals presenting with mental health needs.
• Ability to work with families who are very resistant to change.
• Ability to evaluate service initiatives for effectiveness/ outcome.
• Ability to work strategically to develop the cared for children pathway.
• Ability to keep accurate activity data for audit/evaluation develop and audit the effectiveness of protocols

Desirable criteria

• Service development or project management skills

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, 127.1KB)
• Person Specification (PDF, 129.0KB)
• 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)