Mental Health Practitioner | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in St Helens

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a motivated mental health practitioner to join our thriving team at Knowsley CYPMHS Team. The successful candidate will be enthusiastic and able to work well autonomously and as part of a team. We care for children and young people with varying mental health issues, providing treatment and therapy to them and their families/carers using the think family approach. We work towards the THRIVE model of care and work very closely with our partners across the borough, so excellent communication skills and organisation are essential in this role.

Although we would prefer someone with experience, Mersey Care NHS FT offers a fantastic preceptorship programme which can help newly qualified clinicians develop their experience and skills effectively within the first 12 months.

• Hold a caseload of CYP to coordinate their care and treatment
• Assess new cases to ascertain suitability
• Act as part of an MDT to deliver evidence-based treatments and therapies
• Liaise with outside agencies to co-ordinate care
• Act as an advocate for children and young people in your care ensuring the voice of the child is heard
• Attend meetings and events to develop experience and skills as well as share relevant information
• To attend and assist with training
• To ensure safeguarding is considered at every opportunity and follow policies and procedures in relation to any safeguarding concerns
• To ensure policies and procedures of Mersey Care NHS FT are followed at all times to ensure safe delivery of care

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.

Clinical responsibilities include:

• To coordinate the care of service users carrying out assessment planning, implementation and evaluation of their care under the guidelines of the care programme approach and under the supervision of the line manager.
• To ensure that the service users care plan is developed to meet the assessed need of the individual and that unqualified staff are delivering care as laid down in the care plan.
• To liaise with family members, carers and significant others when completing the assessment and developing a care plan.
• To develop a risk management plan for service users, taking note of the contributions from other members of the team.
• Ensure that all significant people are aware of the risk management plan and are actioning it appropriately.
• To direct unqualified staff in order to ensure delivery of a high standard of care to service users.
• To participate in setting standards for care based on sound evidence-based and research findings.
• To participate in the systematic monitoring and evaluation of service users with guidance from a supervisor.
• To communicate with other members of the multi-disciplinary team to ensure the communication of any relevant information which has an impact on the service user’s care.
• To use verbal and non-verbal communication skills gained through training or experience to impart sensitive information.
• To check understanding of information where there are often barriers to effective communications due to distress, psychiatric symptoms or where English is not the first language.