Band 5 Mental Health Practitioner (Rotation) - Weston-super-Mare

North Somerset Access Services have a very exciting opportunity for a developmental post to develop key skills in assessments and community interventions.

With support from the teams around you then you will have active opportunity to develop the skills required for more senior nursing roles across the trust.

Are you a newly qualified practitioner or have yet to develop community assessment skills due to working in inpatient settings?

This post offers an exciting learning opportunity into community and access services by a rotation between the following teams;

North Somerset Primary Care Liaison; who accept referral predominantly from a GP and offers assessments to establish needs and care pathway for service users. Assessments are a mix of face to face, telephone and telephone triages.

Working hours; Mon-Fri -8:00 – 18:00

Psychiatric Liaison Team; working out of Weston General Hospital, conducting assessments in the emergency department and on wards. Offering training to our general health colleagues and engaging with a variety of external services.

Working hours; 7 days a week 08:00 – 20:00

North Somerset Intensive Team; Working across the locality, offering home treatment and assessments to those at risk of hospital admission. Providing interventions to reduce risk of admissions and management of community based risk.

Working hours; 7 days a week 24/7, You will be fully supported with your community preceptorship and/or developmental plan which will be regularly reviewed at agreed intervals.

The post is rotated at 4 months, during the time with each team you will have worked towards set standards.

This post is open to newly qualified social workers. In line with AWP trust policy all newly qualified social workers (NQSW) will be recruited initially at Band 5 level, regardless of advertised role banding. All NQSW’s are expected to successfully complete their ASYE within 2 years of employment, unless there are exceptional circumstances in which case it may be extended for a further 2 years.

If you have been appointed to an advertised Band 6 role this will be an automatic progression, following confirmation of your successful ASYE completion. If you have been appointed to a Band 5 post you will then be eligible to apply for a subsequent Band 6 vacancy upon successful ASYE completion., To contribute to the full range of activities required to deliver ongoing comprehensive mental health assessment for service users with severe and enduring mental health needs living in the community and in a range of settings.

This may include:

a. The use of standardised assessment tools such as Cluster Allocation Support Tool (CAST), KGV.

b. Recovery Star.

c. History, strengths and aspirations.

d. Mental state.

e. Impact of culture and diversity.

f. Functional needs.

g. The needs of family and carer.

h. Evaluation of risk.

i. Physical health.

j. Complicating factors.

k. The interventions and treatments required to enable positive change.

l. Social Care needs.

m. Safeguarding and public protection.

To contribute to planning, delivering and reviewing treatment programmes using appropriate frameworks in line with evidence-based practice, including strategies to manage risk for service users with complex needs and carers, bringing in other resources as required.

To act as care coordinator for identified service users, also providing defined interventions to individuals on other workers caseloads.

To contribute to the planning, delivery and evaluation of defined, therapeutic interventions as identified, in line with personal recovery plans, including to service users who maybe on other caseloads.

This might include:

a. Individual or group therapeutic intervention.

b. Psychological treatments such as CBT, DBT approaches , family interventions.

c. Psychosocial interventions.

d. Motivational and coping enhancement strategies.

e. Medication management.

f. Interventions under the Mental Health Act.

To deliver a range of activities/defined interventions to improve the

friends/relatives/carers (carers) ability to support the service user and to enable them in their relationship with the service user.

To develop and maintain good partnership working with other services is maintained throughout all treatment episodes, including regular liaison within Primary Health Care Team, inpatient services, day services, voluntary sector and with nominated carers/advocates.

In collaboration with service users and carers, to be responsible for facilitating the development of comprehensive crisis plans, rapid access plans, advance statements etc, involving other agencies such as primary care etc where appropriate.

To personally build, hope inspiring relationships with service users, which

acknowledge the personal journey of each person, and focus on strengths and aspirations to allow the creation of meaningful personal recovery plans.

To be responsible for maintaining own workload, on a day to day basis, ensuring that time is prioritised effectively, making full use of electronic resources such as diaries/scheduling.

To be responsible for the protection of individuals from abuse and harm in line with local safeguarding policies and procedures, by contributing with others to the plans to protect people at risk, ensuring the appropriate sharing of information.

To facilitate access for service users and carers to appropriate community services and interventions outside secondary mental health services and across the complete recovery pathway.

Personally working collaboratively and sensitively with individuals with a range of mental health needs to develop skills to manage their own health, in accordance with their personal recovery plan, by actively promoting and using approaches which are affirming, build on strengths, identify past positive experience and success, and use small steps to move towards the persons goal.

To maintain the single health and social care record, ensuring both paper and electronic records are kept up to date in accordance with professional and organisational standards.

Report and record within agreed timeframes, all activity relating to information reporting and performance requirements.

Demonstrate responsibility for developing own practice in line with professional qualifications and for contributing to the development of others, by making use of effective feedback, supervision, coaching and appraisal, and by providing appropriate information to help others.

To adhere to professional codes of conduct ensuring required skills and

competencies required are maintained.

To participate in local arrangements in order to ensure consistent care to service users across the local geography.

To show willingness to support practices which foster and maintain team working.

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with ‘lived-experience’ of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities,- we are a ‘Disability Confident Employer’ offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria. This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.