Education Mental Health Practitioner

at  Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Education mental health practitioners (EMHPs) work across education and healthcare to provide mental health support for children and young people in schools and colleges.
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Qualified Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) within the Halton Mental Health Support Teams in schools service. In line with the government’s priority to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the EMHP role is an exciting opportunity to deliver evidence-based early interventions for children and young people.
Please note that the advert may close early if we receive a significant number of applications.
Successful candidates will be employed on a full-time basis based within Halton (Runcorn and Widnes) and will play a key role as member of the Halton Mental Health Support Team. They will have the responsibility for delivering the 3 core functions of an MHST to support the mild to moderate mental health and wellbeing needs for children and young people in allocated schools.
Potential candidates will have already successfully completed the HEE commissioned 1yr ‘Education Mental Health Practitioner’ course or the ‘Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner’ course. Those currently undertaking the EMHP training will also be considered.
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
As an Education Mental Health Practitioner, the post holder will provide high standards of evidence-based client centred care to children and young people with mild to moderate mental health needs within the THRIVE Framework for service delivery.
The post holder will be expected to provide interventions to children and young people and their families / carers referred into the service.
As the post is identified within the CYPMH strategy, it is expected the role will continue to develop in line with national and local initiatives.
The post holder will demonstrate an attitude which respects and values service users’ and their carers.

The post holder will embrace the core values of the organisation and adopt the principles of Recovery and THRIVE. These principles will recognise the need to:

• Promote safe practices
• Value the aims of service users
• Work in partnership and offer meaningful choice
• Be optimistic about the possibilities of meaningful change
• Value social inclusion

Clinical
1. To hold a caseload of both specialist and generic work dependent on clinical competence and experience.
2. To undertake assessments and treatment based upon a conceptual framework and employing research-based evidence.
3. To provide direct therapeutic interventions in line with the grading of the post, including assessments, formulation and therapeutic input into children, young people and families referred into the service with mild to moderate mental health problems. Delivering evidence-based intervention for children and young people in education settings. Help children and young people within these settings who present with more severe problems to rapidly access more specialist services. Support and facilitate staff in education settings to identify and where appropriate manage issues related to mental health and wellbeing. Working with and within education environments to afford better access to specialist mental health service.
4. Undertake risk assessments and care plans accordingly, in line with the THRIVE framework
5. To work in ways that are sensitive to the needs of children and young people and families from a wide range of racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds.
6. To participate directly in the team’s duty rotas in line with the grading of the post.
7. To exercise responsibility within supervisory, managerial and accountability structures, for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of clients.
8. To deliver care, ensuring effective assessment, care planning and risk management processes are maintained. Involve the views of children, their families, referring agents and other professionals involved in the network of care.
9. To produce a clinical formulation and intervention plan founded on evidence-based practice in co-operation with the child young person and carers.
10. To hold responsibility for standards of clinical practice within area of work.
11. To work jointly and collaboratively with other team members in order to enhance and develop the provision of services to young people and their families. To have an effective knowledge base of other modalities to engage and work effectively with colleagues in other disciplines.
12. Undertake risk management for all children including the protective and risk factors present in the network of significant relationships.
13. Identify and respond appropriately to child protection issues, as described with the guidelines of Local Safeguarding Children’s Board and Merseycare NHS Foundation Trust safeguarding policies.
14. Maintain clear and comprehensive electronic clinical records, to ensure information is accurate and complies with Data Protection Act and professional body and Trust standards.
15. To engage with using routine outcome measures as clinically appropriate including their use in clinical practice and inputting data into clinical records.
16. To work collaboratively with children, young people and their families and contribute to the trust’s service user participation agenda