Job overview
Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP)
Two permanent and one Fixed Term (1 year) Band 5 post are available in Islington's School Wellbeing Service.
Islington's School Wellbeing Service is part of the national Mental Health Support Teams initiative, aiming to improve access to help and the general culture of emotional support within primary and secondary schools. The service is delivered as a partnership between Whittington Health and LB Islington.
We are recruiting proactive, creative and skilled colleagues to join our thriving team. The successful applicant will be passionate about mental health in schools, widening access to services and enjoy inter-agency working.
To apply, you should have completed a recognised postgraduate EMHP or CWP training course.
Please explain clearly in your supporting statement how you meet the essential and desirable criteria in the Person Specification (pages 5-6 of the JD/PS attachment).
Main duties of the job
Please see the Job Description and the Person Specification attachments for full details of this role.
The successful applicants will join one of our two locality teams in Islington’s Schools Wellbeing Service. The teams deliver preventative and early intervention mental health work to all the borough’s mainstream schools. This work includes workshops, assemblies, groups and individual interventions with children, young people, family members or school staff, as well as whole-school approaches to mental health.
The post holders will deliver groups, workshops and 1:1 brief therapeutic interventions with young people and/or their parents/carers. Other duties include liaison with school staff, contributing to whole-school approaches for mental health, screenings and assessments, observations, joint working, service development work (e.g. producing new workshops), clinical communication via notes, reports and letters, etc.
Working for our organisation
This is a great time to join our service. We are a strong, well established friendly team with professionals from a wide range of therapeutic
backgrounds and experiences. We are excited about developing the MHST in Islington so that more children and families can receive this vital
support at an earlier stage in their schools.
We are committed to supporting staff development and offer additional training opportunities and reflective spaces to support your wellbeing and
further promote your development as a clinician while working with us.
The community served is multi-ethnic and culturally diverse and we welcome applicants who are skilled at working with the richness and
complexity of our multicultural context. We are keen to recruit applicants that reflect the local community and support them to remain in post.
We offer an exciting and dynamic environment where your ideas and career development will be valued. You will be supported directly by senior colleagues and we will develop the service together.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see the Job Description and the Person Specification attachments for full details of this role.
The role will include delivering a wide range of interventions, and mental health and wellbeing approaches to supporting young people’s mental health, delivered in a school setting.
In addition to providing comprehensive assessment and interventions for young people experiencing emotional and mental health difficulties this post is an opportunity to work with school staff and school cultures in developing school environments that better support emotional health and wellbeing.
We have two teams in Islington. Each team is led by joint team leads from CAMHS and Educational Psychology, with six EMHPs in each team, supervised by the team leads.
We are looking for two Band 5 clinicians one to join our South locality team and one to join our North locality team. The successful applicants will hold their own caseload and contribute to interventions such as group work and training.
We have been working closely with schools and local authority partners for well over a decade and have helped develop innovative whole school approaches in the borough including Islington Mental Health and Resiliency Framework (IMHARS) and Islington Trauma Informed Practices in Schools (ITIPS). As such we believe we are particularly well placed to develop a service that realises the ambitions laid out in the Green Paper.
The post will be working in primary and secondary schools and will be based in the community, whilst enjoying a close working relationship with our award-winning Community CAMHS provision and innovative Central Point of Access for Social, Emotional and Mental Health.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
1. Successful completion of the HEE commissioned 1year ‘Education Mental Health Practitioner’ (EMHP) or ‘Children and Young Person Wellbeing Practitioner’ (CWP) course
Desirable criteria
2. Further relevant degree qualification
3. Teaching qualification
4. Youth Mental Health First Aid trained
Skills/Competencies
Essential criteria
5. Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health interventions with children
6. Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health interventions with families
7. Ability to conduct group parenting programmes
8. Ability to work within educational settings to increase mental health awareness within the staff group
9. Ability to conduct mental health assessments of children and young people
10. Ability to make an assessment of risk and to record and communicate it appropriately
11. Ability take appropriate action to mitigate or manage risk
Desirable criteria
12. Ability to teach others about mental health issues
13. Ability to conduct other group therapeutic interventions with children and their families
Knowledge
Essential criteria
14. Knowledge of educational environments
15. Knowledge of safeguarding issues
16. Knowledge of capacity and consent issues including Gillick competence
Desirable criteria
17. Knowledge of the functional operation of specialist CAMHS teams
Previous Experience
Essential criteria
18. Experience of working with children and young people, their families and others
19. Experience of working and liaising with a wide variety of agencies and stakeholders
Desirable criteria
20. Experience of working with children and their families in a healthcare setting
21. Experience of working with children and their families in an education setting
Specialist Experience
Essential criteria
22. Experience of working with children and young people who have social, emotional and/or behavioural difficulties
23. Experience of working with anxiety disorders
24. Experience of working with affective (mood) disorders
25. Experience of the delivery of specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people or their families (e.g. CBT, solution focused brief therapy)
Desirable criteria
26. Experience of monitoring and recording outcome measures for children’s emotional wellbeing
27. Experience of navigating complex social systems and environments, who may have conflicting priorities or agendas
28. Experience of working with looked after children
29. Experience of working with other vulnerable groups
Specific Attributes
Essential criteria
30. Full, enhanced and current satisfactory DBS disclosure for the role
31. Ability to personally manage a sensitive, traumatic and potentially emotionally distressing caseload
32. Excellent oral and written communication skills
Desirable criteria
33. Proven commitment to continuous professional development
Personal Qualities
Essential criteria
34. Self-motivated
35. Able to travel to meet the requirements of the post
36. Team player
37. Excellent time management and organisational skills
38. Able to meet the physical requirements of the role after reasonable adjustments have been made for any illness or disability
SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS
To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:
39. Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
40. Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
41. Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
42. Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
43. Participate in required training and supervision.
44. Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct
Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.