Mental Health Practitioner (12 month fixed term)

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

Mental Health Practitioner (12 month fixed term)

The closing date is 26 October 2026

Are youpassionate about helping young people with mental health problems? Do you haveexperience of working with Children in Care and their extended networks and arecommitted to getting the best outcomes for them? If you answer yes to thesequestions, then Wakefield CAMHS is for you!

We are lookingfor an experienced and confident Mental Health Practitioner in the WakefieldCAMHS Enhanced Outreach Team. You will work within a busy multidisciplinaryteam. You must have significant experience and be able to demonstrate yourability to work with young people and their families/carers/networks,particularly Children in Care, who can often present with a range of complexmental health needs. The teams criteria also covers forensic like behavioursincluding animal cruelty and fire setting.

You must have arange of skills and knowledge to deliver the clinical aspects of the role. Youmust be able to work as an autonomous practitioner within professional practiceguidelines and a structured supervision framework.

Please be awarethat you must meet all the essential qualification requirements of the role (asdescribed in the person specification) to be considered for interview. You willneed to be a registered with a core profession.

Secondmentopportunities may be considered for internal candidates.

Main duties of the job

• Hold a caseload of young people with complexmental health concerns to provide therapeutic intervention.
• Attend MDT meetings.
• Liaise with other agencies, such as Social CareDirect, on a regular basis.
• Ensuring documentation and relevant paperworkis up to date and accurate.
• Conduct risk assessments and support youngpeople, cars/parents to manage the risks identified.
• Offer therapeutic intervention to young peopleon your caseload.
• Support with the duty worker rota (withinworking hours)

All employees of the Trust are strongly encouraged to have their up-to-date flu vaccination to protect staff and patients.

While this role meets the eligibility requirements for Skilled Worker sponsorship, due to the short-term nature of the contract, the Trust will not be offering sponsorship for this post.

We welcome applications from individuals who already have the right to work in the UK or are on a visa route that permits employment without sponsorship. Such applications will be considered alongside all others.

About us

Weare a specialist NHS Foundation Trust that provides community, mental healthand learning disability services for the people of Barnsley, Calderdale,Kirklees and Wakefield. We also provide low and medium secure services and arethe lead for the west Yorkshire secure provider collaborative.

Our mission isto help people reach their potential and live well in their communities, we do thisby providing high-quality care in the right place at the right time. We employstaff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make adifference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourageand welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, we valuediversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

Beinga foundation Trust means were accountable to ourmembers, who can have a say in how were run. Around 14,300 local people(including staff) are members of our Trust.

Joinus and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improvingthe mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet andhelp each year.

Weare committedto safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people andvulnerable adults and expects all colleagues and volunteers to share thiscommitment.

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

Thepost-holder will:

Provide assessment and treatment to childrenand young people with mental health needs;

Work autonomously and collaboratively withinthe MDT, providing consultation for other agencies/professionals;

Promote the safeguarding and welfare ofchildren and young people.

Toprovide routine and urgent assessment and interventions to young people with awide range of emotional and psychological problems who are referred tospecialist CAMHS, in keeping with evidence based practice with supervision froma senior clinician within professional guidelines and within the overallframework of the teams policies and procedures.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

1

To support theongoing process of delivering a comprehensive CAMHS system.

2

To provideassessment, interventions, therapy to children, young people with the mostsevere, complex and persistent mental health problems, including those whoare severely mentally ill or at suicidal risk and where appropriate, familiesas both an autonomous practitioner and as part of a multidisciplinary team ina variety of settings to address need. This will include working with theCAPA model.

3

To apply a soundknowledge of safeguarding children and guidelines in clinical work.

4

To be committedto a quality approach for patient care.

5

Thepost-holder will demonstrate high levels of concentration and provide sustainedeffort in assessment of complex family issues.

6

Tomanage own caseload, accessing support and guidance appropriate to individualneed.

7

To operate within the clinical and case managementsupervision framework.

8

To provide training, consultation and supervision toother service providers, partner agencies and junior members of staff asrequired regarding intensive interventions with children, young people andfamilies.

9

To participate in the development, audit andreview of this extension to existing service provision.

10

To undertake extended hours of work alongside fellowspecialist CAMHS practitioners.

For full job description, please see attached supportingdocuments.

We are aware that an increasing number ofapplicants are using AI technology to generate responses on NHS Job applicationforms. Over reliance on AI-generated content in application forms is stronglydiscouraged and we will conduct a thorough screening process before selectingcandidates to progress to the next stage. If you are using AI to enhance yourapplication, please disclose this in your NHS Jobs application form.

Person Specification

Experience

• Substantial post qualification experience, some of which must be working with Children, young people and their carers in a mental health or other complex care setting
• Multidisciplinary team working
• Inter-agency liaison and consultation
• Experience of supervising/mentoring junior staff
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and guidance e.g. NHS plan, Mental Health Legislation, Childrens act, Education Act, Working Together, Childrens NSF, Every Child Matters, etc.
• Clinical/therapeutic knowledge and skills in mental health.
• Experience in assessment and risk management and ability to implement evidence based practice
• Proven ability to work with other agencies and disciplines and in partnership with other organisations.
• Experience of safeguarding children and young people.
• Experience of community settings
• Experience of working in different cultural contexts
• Knowledge and experience of working with Equality and Diversity.

Qualifications

• Relevant professional qualification, e.g. nursing, or other professional allied to medicine
• Dip SW or relevant mental health profession
• Membership of professional body
• Post graduate qualification in mental health (e.g. CBT, Family Therapy, Counselling)
• A teaching and assessing qualification.

Special Knowledge/Skills

• Good verbal and communication skills
• Ability to manage own caseload
• Good negotiation skills, and problem solving skills
• Effective record keeping and report writing skills to include care planning and risk assessments.
• Have good team working skills. Be able to work across disciplines with an ability to predict and manage inter-disciplinary tensions and foster good working practices.

Physical Attributes

• Ability to undertake the duties and demands of the post. A satisfactory sickness record over the previous 2 years (subject to the need to act with fairness and equality of opportunity, particularly where the sickness is related to a disability and/or pregnancy).

Training

• Training and experience relating to specialist CAMHS
• Experience of delivering training to others

Personal Attributes

• Able to work autonomously and as part of a team
• Commitment to multi-agency approach
• Ability to work and make decisions under pressure.
• Calm, confident, innovative, creative
• and assertive
• Clarity of decision making
• Willingness to be flexible and adaptable in accordance with changing service priorities.
• Commitment to challenging discrimination and improving accessibility of services.
• Ability to cope calmly in a crisis
• To demonstrate good self care and encourage the same in team members
• A Current driving licence and access to a car during the working day is essential (reasonable adjustments will be considered for any applicants who are unable to drive due to a disability)

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust