Job summary
- Main area
- Senior Mental Health Practitioner
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Fixed term: 12 months (2 x posts)
- Hours
- Full time
- Part time
- Job ref
- 411-COM-25-7348086
- Employer
- Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Alder Hey
- Town
- Liverpool
- Salary
- £47,810 - £54,710 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 15/09/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Senior Mental Health Practitioner
Band 7
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust is a provider of specialist health care and has a presence in community outreach sites and, in collaboration with other providers, our clinicians help deliver care closer to patients’ homes by holding local clinics at locations from Cumbria to Shropshire, in Wales and the Isle of Man. The Trust also provides inpatient care for children with complex mental health needs at our Sunflower House building newly relocated, and opened on the hospital site.
We currently have more than 4,000 staff working across our community and hospital sites. We’re also a teaching and training hospital providing education and training to around 540 medical and over 500 nursing and allied health professional students each year.
As black and minority ethnic (BME) employees are currently under-represented in this area, we particularly welcome applications from members of our BME communities. All appointments will be made on merit.
You can expect a warm welcome at Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, our staff are friendly and welcoming. We listen to each other and work together to embed our Trusts values and behaviours. At Alder Hey we appreciate our staff and reward them with an outstanding benefits package including:
- Great flexible working opportunities
- Lease car scheme and Home Electronics Scheme
- Generous annual leave and pension scheme
- Extensive staff health and well-being programmes
Job overview
Senior Mental Health Practitioner x2
Band 7 - fixed term 12 month posts
37.5 Hours per week
This is an great opportunity for a mental health practitioners specialising in supporting children and young people to join the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust.
The Mental Health Practitioner will be a member of the specialist, multi-disciplinary service and will have case management responsibility for their case load, however, they will be supported through supervision by a senior member of the team on a regular basis.
The post holder will provide a range of appropriate, evidence based clinical interventions informed by assessed individual need. The post holder may be required to provide support, advice and consultation to families/carers and other professionals involved in the life of the child/young person.
We expect applicants to have substantial experience of working with children and young people. Further training in positive behaviour support would be an advantage.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will undertake appropriate mental health assessment of children and young people referred to CAMHS Service Group and provide a range of appropriate, evidence based clinical interventions informed by assessed individual need.
The post holder will provide support, advice and consultation to families/carers and other professionals involved in the life of the child/young person.
Working for our organisation
Alder Hey has already earned our place as one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals, thanks to innovation and pioneering medical work. We treat 250,000 young patients a year and have a broad range of hospital and community services, serving the local population of children, as well as being a tertiary referral centre for children from across Merseyside, Cheshire and parts of Lancashire, Shropshire and North Wales.
Every individual makes a valuable contribution and Alder Hey is proud of its long history of providing pioneering and innovative healthcare to children and young people. We are looking for motivated and enthusiastic candidates to join our dynamic and experienced CAMHS team
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Main Duties and Responsibilities:
1. Provide specialist assessments of children and young people referred to the service group
2. Develop, implement and review a range of evidence based treatment plans informed by clinical assessment and the specific
needs of the individual within their wider social context
3. Exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of children/young people in the
context of Care Aims and CAPA models
4. Provide specialist advice, guidance and consultation to other professional groups
5. Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual children and young people and to provide advice to external
agencies regarding appropriate risk
6. Act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under CPA
7. Effectively communicate with families and other professionals involved in the life of the child/young person
8. Actively record all clinical outcomes.
9. Participate in the Service Group MDT as appropriate and at the direction of senior clinicians within the Team.
10. Receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with professional guidelines
11. Provide clinical supervision support to staff from own and other service groups/teams where appropriate
12. Contribute to the development and delivery of CPD programmes for own profession.
13. Develop skills in own area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and consultation.
14. Contribute to appropriate pre- and post-qualification training.ion.
Person specification
Qualifications & Training
Essential criteria
- Qualified in core profession such as: HCPC registered Drama Therapist HCPC registered Art Therapist HCPC registered Music Therapist HCPC registered Occupational Therapist HCPC registered Practitioner Psychologist SWE registered Social Worker NMC registered Nurse UKCP registered Family and Systemic Psychotherapist ACP registered Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist MBACP registered Counsellor
- OR - Recognised degree level broad based health & social care qualification which will require completion of The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Knowledge Skills and Attributes http://www.babcp.com/Accreditation/CBP/KSA.aspx and training in a therapeutic modality
- Accredited therapeutic training
Desirable criteria
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of child and adolescent mental health.
- Post graduate (masters and above) level study
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions with children and young people with mental health problems and their families.
- Working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team
- Working collaboratively with other agencies in a variety of venues.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of child mental health problems, across the whole age range, reflecting all levels of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and verbal and physical abuse.
- Must be experienced in providing risk assessment of self harming behaviour
- Must be experienced in analysing presenting problems and able to demonstrate ability to work autonomously utilising a range of therapeutic perspectives and modalities, depending on the needs of the client.
- Must be experienced in and able to demonstrate ability to provide case management supervision for lower banded CAMHS Workers, students and other service group/team professionals as required.
- Must demonstrate ability to be self-reflective and to organise own supervision appropriately. Must be able to demonstrate ability to develop and evaluate consultation and training to other professionals and to staff groups
Desirable criteria
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions of in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of working with children and young people in a range of clinical settings.
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Some knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
- Must demonstrate knowledge of the evidence base in their practice.
- Must demonstrate understanding of child development and psychosocial influences
- Must demonstrate a working understanding of systemic, psychodynamic and cognitive theories along with recognition of when each approach is appropriate.
- Must demonstrate knowledge of audit and evaluation methodology.
- Must demonstrate knowledge of research methodology.
- Must demonstrate an understanding of current government initiatives underpinning service developments. Must demonstrate strong organisational skills.
- Must be able to demonstrate the ability to manage aspects of service development in line with government initiatives.
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc)
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised therapies/interventions
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of child and adolescent mental health.
Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of complex methods of mental health assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
- Must demonstrate ability to autonomously managed own workload balance
Personal Attributes
Essential criteria
- Must demonstrate a commitment to the overall vision of the development of the professional group of CAMHS Workers.
- Must demonstrate utilisation of professional development planning in own career progression.
- Must show enthusiasm and appreciation for multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working.
- Must demonstrate a professional manner.
- Must demonstrate a high level of communication skills commensurate with the nature of clinical and professional contacts required of the post.
- Accountable for own professional actions
- Works within professional ethics and Trust policies
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Sam Coppard
- Job title
- Clinical Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
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