Job overview
We are looking for highly motivated individuals to join our team as Qualified Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners with Secondary Care Psychological Therapies and our Lambeth Living Well Centres. This is an exciting role created by NHS England and Improvement to support the transformation of adult community mental health services.
This role will contribute to ensuring adults with severe mental health problems have greater access to psychologically informed interventions.
We are committed to developing a team that is fully representative of the communities that we serve.
Main duties of the job
As a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner, you will be expected to work under supervision as part of a dynamic mental health team delivering psychologically informed interventions and supporting adults to receive the right care. You will need to have flexibility and adaptability and a passion for working with adults with severe mental health problems.
As a qualified MHWP you will, under supervision, continue to develop knowledge and practice skills to employ wellbeing-focused psychologically informed interventions for serious mental health problems for adults individually and in groups, as well as support their families and carers, in line with the education providers expectations. You will be taking a lead role in integrated work within our Living Well Centres, including joint formulation, training and consultation. You will hold an individual guided self-help caseload within the Living Well Centre team you work with and a separate role within SCPT in the first tier of our Complex Emotional Needs pathway.
Working for our organisation
The second largest inner London Borough with an official population of around 350,000. The local population has needs related to a high level of social deprivation such as unemployment, poor social housing and child poverty. There are also pockets of greater affluence. There are high levels of morbidity, and levels and complexity of mental health problems are above the national average
Lambeth CCG and Lambeth Council want people of Lambeth to have a fully integrated and coordinated mental health system which focuses on people’s strengths and supports their whole health and wellbeing. They have commissioned SLAM NHS as part of the Lambeth Living Well Network (LWN) Alliance to lead, co-ordinate and, in large part, deliver support and services for those experiencing mental health issues in Lambeth.
The Trust: The South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust is part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) and committed to innovation, effective interventions and improved service user outcomes. It provides mental health services to the people of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Croydon, and some more specialist services to people from across the UK.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner will:
1. work in an adult community mental health service (partly within the Living Well Centre Short Term Support Team and partly with the Secondary Care Psychological Therapies pathway)
2. develop and practice psychologically-informed interventions under supervision, working directly with adults in the community
3. support collaborative care planning, alongside other members of the multi-disciplinary team
4. work closely alongside a team of mental health professionals to deliver a set of brief wellbeing-focused psychologically informed interventions - not therapy - for example:
5. Behavioural Activation and Graded Exposure using the “GOALS” programme
6. Problem-solving
7. Improving sleep
8. Recognising and managing emotions
9. Guided self-help for bulimia and binge-eating
10. Confidence building
11. Support with medicines management
The Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner will be required to:
12. Have experience of work interacting with the public, working as part of a team, analysing complex information and communicating effectively
13. Demonstrate the ability to establish and maintain empathic, supportive relationships with people in significant distress, their families and carers
They will work within the limits of their experience and assessed competence for their role:
14. To work alongside service users, families, carers and multi-disciplinary team members to co-ordinate care, supporting collaborative decision-making about care and treatment.
15. To deliver a set of wellbeing-focused psychologically-informed interventions, aligned to cognitive-behavioural principles, based on the best evidence available, that address problems often experienced by people with severe mental health problems.
To work within the limits of level of training and experience as a developing practitioner, taking on clinical practice appropriate to assessed levels of competence. The post-holder will under supervision from a suitably qualified professional to provide high quality collaborative care planning as a member of the multi-disciplinary team, with a level of autonomy matched to level of demonstrated competence. The post-holder will work under close clinical skills supervision from an HCPC registered clinical / counselling psychologist, BABCP accredited cognitive behavioural therapist or Senior MHWP to provide specified psychologically-informed wellbeing-focused interventions, with a level of autonomy matched to level of demonstrated competence.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
16. A graduate certificate (Level 6) or postgraduate certificate (Level 7) delivering the national curriculum for Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioners (Adult Specialist Mental Health)
Desirable criteria
17. Any training relevant to the service user group
Experience
Essential criteria
18. Experience of working with people with mental health needs gained through a graduate certificate or postgraduate certificate training with significant supervised practice
19. Experience running groups/activities
20. Experience working as part of a team
21. Experience of being supervised
22. Experience of analysing and communicating complex information verbally and in writing
Desirable criteria
23. Lived experience of mental health issues/difficulties
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria
24. Able to establish and maintain empathic, supportive relationships with people in significant distress or who are cognitively impaired, their families and carers
25. Able to receive, understand and communicate confidential client information of a sensitive and often complex nature, including discussing care with family members within boundaries of confidentiality
26. Able to communicate in a sensitive and reassuring manner, with empathy, and where appropriate reassurance
27. Able to make good use of clinical supervision in a group and/or individual format
28. Able to assist in assessment and observation activities related to individual’s health and wellbeing, arriving at judgments about how to respond within the care plan