Senior Occupational Therapist MHST | Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust in Harrow

This is a role within the Green Paper for Transforming children and young people’s mental health. We are seeking a Band 6 Senior Occupational Therapist to join our diverse Harrow Mental Health Support Team (MHST), based within CNWL Early Intervention CAMHS. The post holder will work across Harrow schools, supporting children and young people with mild to moderate mental health needs, including anxiety, low mood, behavioural difficulties, and occupational performance or participation needs.

This role will involve delivering evidence-based, short-term occupational therapy interventions, supporting whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing, and working closely with our key stakeholders which include children, young people, families, schools, and multi-disciplinary colleagues. The post holder will also contribute to the development of the OT pathway within Harrow MHST in line with CYP-IAPT principles.

The post holder will provide occupational therapy assessment, intervention, consultation and signposting for children and young people within Harrow schools. This will include individual and group work, psychoeducation, promoting healthy routines, supporting emotional regulation, improving participation in education, self-care and leisure, and helping young people develop coping and self-management skills.

The role will also involve working in partnership with schools, parents/carers and other professionals to develop strengths-based care plans with clear goals. The post holder will support whole school approaches to wellbeing, provide training, workshops and consultation to education staff, complete risk assessments, maintain accurate records and outcome measures, and contribute to supervision to junior colleagues and other team members.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest and most diverse community and mental health Trusts in the country. CNWL provides a wide range of services across London and the South East and works with diverse communities where over 100 first languages are spoken. Harrow MHST provides early intervention mental health support for children and young people, their families and carers. The service works collaboratively with schools to improve access to mental health support, provide timely advice, and help children and young people remain engaged in education. CNWL’s values are Compassion, Respect, Empowerment and Partnership, and the Trust offers a range of development, learning and staff network opportunities.

The Senior Occupational Therapist will care for a caseload of children and young people with mild to moderate mental health difficulties and identified occupational performance or participation needs. They will use specialist OT skills to assess, plan, implement and review brief interventions, ensuring these are evidence-based, culturally appropriate and centred on the young person’s goals.

Key responsibilities include:

• Delivering individual and group OT interventions;
• Supporting children and young people with routines, coping skills, emotional wellbeing, social participation and engagement in education;
• Offering consultation and advice to schools;
• Supporting whole school approaches to mental health;
• Developing and evaluating group work;
• Evidencing outcomes of OT intervention;
• Contributing to the ongoing development of the MHST OT pathway.

The post holder will work as part of the wider MHST senior team, contribute to supervision and service development, show awareness and implementation of CYP-IAPT and CBT-informed principles, support safeguarding processes where needed, maintain high standards of clinical documentation, complete routine outcome measures, and uphold professional standards in line with HCPC, RCOT and CNWL policies.