Specialist Mental Health Practitioner CAMHS Children in Care Team

This service has been newly developed in partnership with our three Local Authority colleagues in West Berkshire (Newbury), Reading and Wokingham.

Staff are based within three Local Authorities in West Berkshire, Reading and Wokingham, alongside Local Authority teams who are working with CiC.

The CiC is being established to ensure that children who are in care receive quicker access to mental health support, by working in partnership and sharing knowledge, we hope to effectively meet the needs of children and young people in care and their carers by providing evidenced based interventions that meet their need.

The service aims to improve life chances of Children in Care, by working towards increasing these resiliency factors:
• Creating stability of the Child or Young person’s home placement
• CYP able to maintain a relationship with family members and work to be re-united where that is possible.
• Fostering as strong an attachment as possible with the CYP foster carers or adults responsible for their care (if in a residential setting)
• Reaching as high as possible Education achievements and
• Creating local social networks, forming positive and meaningful relationships with peers and other adults.

A high degree of autonomy is associated with these posts. Operational management and clinical supervision will be provided by Berkshire Healthcare, but the work will be completed within Local Authority bases and the wider community.

Main duties of the job

Clinical Roles will include
• Consultation - offering advice, information and support to young people, carers, and professionals
• Providing Training to carers and professionals
• Clinical assessments for young people.
• High and low intensity, evidence-based therapeutic interventions (individual, group, family, as appropriate)
• Joint working with partner agencies, including Mental Health Support Teams, Early Help, Youth Offending Teams, other Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
• Use of routine outcome measures to promote active participation from young people and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions
• Supervision, as appropriate to role

The 4 “must haves” for you to be considered for this role:

• Experience of working with young people with mental health difficulties
• Passion for providing collaborative and evidence-based mental health care
• Enthusiasm for multi-professional and multi-agency working
• Ability to travel between multiple sites

If you’re someone who shares our passion for excellence and care, join us and let’s be outstanding together.

Working for our organisation

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’re committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. As an inclusive employer, we value diversity and are proud to be a Stonewall 100 Top Employer. Whatever your background or individual needs, at Berkshire Healthcare you’ll be supported by friendly and professional managers to succeed.

Some of the benefits of working for us include:
• Flexible working options to support work-life balance.
• 27 days’ annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell leave
• Generous NHS pension scheme – 20.68% employer contribution
• Excellent learning and career development opportunities
• ‘Cycle to Work’ and car leasing scheme
• Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services
• Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants via the Blue Light Card
• Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities and more to support equality
• Generous maternity, paternity and adoption leave and access to our three staff nurseries

We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community, regardless of any protected characteristics. Reasonable adjustments will be made for disabled applicants where required.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached job description for more information about this role and working at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.

Person specification
Education/Qualifications/ Training
Essential criteria

- Doctoral degree in: Systemic Family Psychotherapy or Psychotherapy .or Psychology (or equivalent for those who trained before 1996) as accredited by the BPS
- Masters level qualification or recognised equivalent qualification:- Qualified Systemic Family Therapist Masters level UKCP registered. Or
- Qualified Psychotherapist registered with professional body i.e. ACP approved Child Psychotherapist. Or
- Registered Mental Health Nurse (NMC) Or
- Occupational Therapy degree level qualification and registered with HCPC. Or
- Registered Social Worker with relevant social work qualification Or
- Other Health professional with relevant post graduate qualification andRelevant post graduate qualification in CAMHS related subject Registration with HCPC where required

Continuous Professional Development
Essential criteria

Evidence of continuous professional development in areas related Child and Adolescent Mental Health

Previous Experience
Essential criteria

- Experience of team and service leadership and improvement.
- Substantial supervision experience
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of children and adolescents and their families across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in-patient settings.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Experience of working in different cultural contexts.
- Minimum 4 years’ experience working with Children, young people, families and groups in Mental Health setting
- Ability to prioritise case referrals, assessment and discharge effectively on an individual basis or within multidisciplinary team
- Experience of Risk Assessment and Management.
- Ability to undertake investigations into complaints, grievances and disciplinary matters as set out in Trust policies and procedures
- Experience of hard to reach diverse community groups and individuals with emerging complex needs, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities and safeguarding.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of service improvement
- Experience of teaching and training.
- Experience of assessment of systemic family processes and an understanding of organisational systems which influence families’ experience of services.
- Experience of working with children and young people using evidence based therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), systemic family therapy and other psychological therapies
- Experience of running therapeutic groups
- ASD Pathway - Relevant training and/or experience in multi-disciplinary assessments of autism spectrum disorders in children and adolescents including training and/or a working knowledge of ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule), ADI-R or 3Di’

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities
Essential criteria

- Knowledge and skills to assess acute mental health crisis, and deliberate self harm at tier 3 levels.
- Demonstrates up to date knowledge of legislation and National strategies and requirements for CAMHS.
- Advanced knowledge and skills in using the complete range of approaches practice as required meeting the needs of different children and young people and settings.
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
- Experience of working with Children in Care (CiC) and Young people.
- Evidence of working as a qualified senior clinician within CAMHS, Looked After services or Looked After services within a Local Authority setting.
- Ability to work across both Social Care and Health settings
- Ability to prioritise case referrals, assess and discharge effectively on an autonomous basis or within the multidisciplinary team
- Ability to take clinical responsibility for patient care and treatment. Information technology and word processing skills. Ability to apply evidence based therapeutic interventions.
- Knowledge of the influences of Parental Mental Health on young people, Domestic Violence, Survivors of Torture
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies

Additional Requirements
Essential criteria

- Experience of working within a multicultural framework
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Ability and willingness to work in a flexible way including working outside of normal hours to facilitate out of hours clinics as required by Commissioners.
- Able to maintain professional boundaries and conduct
- Supportive approach towards colleagues and service users.
- Enthusiastic, self-motivated team player.
- Able to negotiate, be confident and assertive
- Physical stamina to support clinical caseload which requires intense concentration whilst sitting with client groups or in video screen rooms observing clients for prolonged periods.
- Emotional stamina and ability to respond constructively in highly stressful situations where individuals hold very different perspectives and there is a high level of distress, ambiguity and conflict.
- Competent IT skills and the ability to navigate around various systems and software packages (such as outlook, databases, e.g. RiO, MS office and internet.
- Car owner/driver and possess full UK driver’s licence or evidence of ability to travel to designated base and other sites.

Berkshire Healthcare helps people manage their health in their local area, through a range of specialist and community services across the county. We promote independence and quality of life through community and mental health services and aim for seamless delivery of the best care in the right place. We get to know communities and the people in them so we can deliver the best services that meet their health needs.

Our team of 4,300 staff provide specialist mental health and community health services to a population of around 900,000 within Berkshire. We provide healthcare to people in their own homes and from different sites across the county.

We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community, regardless of any protected characteristics. Reasonable adjustments will be made for disabled applicants where required.

Appointment to any position is conditional on the satisfactory completion of the core NHS Employment Checks Standards. Information disclosed in your application will be checked and any offer of appointment may be withdrawn if you knowingly withhold information or provide false or misleading information.

Please ensure your application is submitted with a valid email address for your referees in order to minimise delays in the recruitment process. Short-listed applicants will be contacted by email, therefore applicants are advised to check their email accounts regularly.

Applicants are advised that as a result of the high level of response we receive for some of our vacancies, we may expire any of them prior to the advertised closing date.

Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust is committed to improving the health of its staff, patients and the wider community by providing a smoke free environment. A smoke free policy is in operation and smoking is not permitted on any of the Trust’s sites.

Interviews on 15th July 2023