Closing date is 22 March 2026
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
MHST Clinical Service Lead
Lewisham Mental Health Support Team (MHST) is an early intervention and prevention service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people (CYP) in education settings. Lewisham MHST is organised in a North and South Team and is expected to support 92 education settings by December 2029.
The post holder will provide operational and strategic leadership across the three MHST core functions:
* Delivering evidence‑based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues.
* Supporting the senior mental health lead in each education setting to introduce or develop their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.
* Giving timely advice to school and college staff, and liaising with external specialist services to help children and young people get the right support and stay in education.
Main duties of the job
The post holder is responsible to support local workforce development in line with local and national transformation plans to ensure a coordinated approach across the MHST, including clear lines of reporting and governance, and the process for escalating any problems or issues.
The post holder is responsible for the day‑to‑day operational management of the South Team, consisting of two clusters, each responsible for supporting approximately 20‑25 education settings situated in South Lewisham.
Key responsibilities include:
* Quality assurance: ensuring the MHST Hubs are delivering consistent, high‑quality mental health support, care and interventions, with appropriate and adequate clinical supervision; ensuring clear processes around data collection, record keeping, information sharing and managing complaints.
Job responsibilities
* Provide assessments, formulations and interventions for clients referred to the Mental Health Support Team and/or offer supervision to other members of the team in providing those.
* Support and empower children, young people and families to make informed choices about the intervention.
* Support children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their families in the self‑management of presenting difficulties.
* Work in partnership with families to provide culturally appropriate psychological interventions with carers or families of referred clients when required.
* Assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
* Act as care co‑ordinator taking responsibility for the oversight of cases within the Mental Health Support team.
* Provide support for EMHPs and CWPs in using CYP IAPT compliant routine outcome measures.
* Ensure clear objectives are identified, discussed and reviewed with EMHPs and CWPs on a regular basis as part of their continuing professional development.
* Contribute to the effective working of the team or service and to a psychologically informed framework for the service.
* Contribute to the team or service's delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.
* Be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.
* Advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients.
* Where appropriate liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients in order to develop and review care plans.
* Utilise theory, evidence‑based literature and research to support evidence‑based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
* Manage the team budget and resources, taking care of and using Trust equipment and physical resources efficiently, and deploy resources in line with Trust, local and national guidelines.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Entry‑level qualification: appropriately registered Educational/Clinical/Counselling psychologist, Systemic Family Therapist, Psychotherapist, Nurse, OT, Social Work CBT Therapist and registration with relevant UK governing body.
* Completed training course in clinical supervision.
* Evidence of continuing professional development as required by relevant Professional body e.g. HCPC/UKCP/RCN/SWE/BABCP.
* PG qualification in Leading on Transformation & Change in CYP mental health and wellbeing services.
* CBT trained and certified by BABCP.
Experience
* Evidence of having worked as a clinical specialist children, young people and their families under supervision.
* Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature in CAMHS.
* Experience of supervising and having completed the relevant training.
* Experience of providing teaching and training to professional groups.
* Post‑qualification experience that supports working with, and addressing issues of, diversity within local communities.
* Experience of working with schools.
* Experience of previous working with CWP or EMHP trainees.
Knowledge and Skills
* Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of evidence‑based therapies for child and adolescents.
* Advanced theoretical knowledge of psychosocial theories of mental health and the evidence base for the relevant treatment.
* Advanced knowledge of mental health assessment.
* Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health issues, child and adult protection, and equalities.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Address
Kaleidoscope Centre for Children and Young People
Salary
£64,156 to £71,148 a year per annum incl. of Inner HCAS
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full‑time
Reference number
334-CLI-7766575
Job locations
Kaleidoscope Centre for Children and Young People
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