The Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust has an exciting opportunity for a CAMHS Senior Mental Health Practitioner for GP in the East of Berkshire (Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme - ARRS) join our Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) to enhance joint working across primary care and the network of emotional wellbeing and mental health services within the locality, improving patient journeys and making it easier for children, young people and their families to obtain the help they need.
To enable robust access to clinical supervision, professional development and to facilitate recruitment and retention, we will seek to recruit the role that are shared across the PCN and locality Getting Help or Mental Health in Schools Team.
Post holders will spend 2.5 days in the PCN and 2.5 days in the identified CAMHS Team.
This is a unique opportunity to be part of and contribute to a newly developed and innovative service. This is an important post, at the interface with partner agencies and specialist CAMHS. The posts require enthusiastic and self-motivated individuals who are passionate about delivering duty interventions and contributing to team working.
The post holder will be an integral part of this team, holding a small caseload of Getting Help level cases accepted via triage and assessment in their PCN role.
The post holder will be an experienced child and adolescent mental health practitioner who will work as part of the PCN MDT to deliver the following:
Clinical triage and assessment of patients requesting appointments for mental health issues including challenging behaviour. This includes same day appointments and planned appointments.
Signpost/navigate to other sources of information and local support including peer support, social prescribers, VSCE services e.g. youth counselling, youth workers, GEMS; within the Thrive framework/stepped care approach.
Identify any onward referral pathways and make appropriate referrals , undertaking screening and ensuring provision of required information to support the referral
Help people to develop coping strategies and draw on their own strengths and resources
Liaise with CAMHS to enable crisis support and admission avoidance where necessary
Facilitate appropriate representation in practice-based MDT’s to support clinical management of identified patients
Provide specialist advice to GP’s and other members of the MDT on the particular needs of children and young people and their families including advice on symptoms, risk or the need for a referral.
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 employer, we’re committed to offering an inclusive and compassionate environment where our people share in a sense of belonging and are supported to flourish.

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
For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification.
We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted.
We’re committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in our accreditations: Race Equality Matters Silver Trailblazer, Neurodiversity in Business Corporate Member, Disability Confident Leader, Carer Confident Level 2, and the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award. Reasonable adjustments will be provided to candidates as needed.
We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have. Please don’t hesitate to email: Vicki Livingstone on Vicki.Livingstone@berkshire.nhs.uk who’ll be delighted to help.
Please note, if we receive a high number of applications, we may close this role earlier than the advertised closing date, so please submit your application as soon as possibl