Senior Mental Health Practitioner | Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in Huyton

An opportunity has arisen for a Senior Mental Health Nurse to join our multi-disciplinary team in the Children's Eating Disorder Service. As a Senior Mental Health Practitioner, the post holder will provide high standards of evidence-based client-centred care to children and young people with mental health (CYPMH) problems within the THRIVE Framework for service delivery.

The post holder will be expected to provide interventions, advice, consultation and supervision to both colleagues and external partner agencies in line with THRIVE and clinical competency. The role will continue to develop in line with national and local initiatives. The post holder will demonstrate an attitude which respects and values service users and their carers, embracing the core values of the organisation and adopting the principles of Recovery and THRIVE.

These principles will recognise the need to:

• Promote safe practices
• Value the aims of service users
• Work in partnership and offer meaningful choice
• Be optimistic about the possibilities of meaningful change
• Value social inclusion

The team promotes the Thrive model of service delivery and is continually developing innovative and creative practices. The successful candidate will share our enthusiasm and hard-working approach.

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. We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health, including mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services.

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.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

CLINICAL

• To hold a caseload of both specialist and generic work depending on clinical competence and experience.
• To undertake assessments, treatment and consultation work based upon a conceptual framework and employing research-based evidence.
• To provide direct therapeutic interventions in line with the grading of the post, including assessments, formulation and therapeutic input into children, young people and families referred into the service.
• Undertake risk assessments and care plans accordingly, in line with the THRIVE framework.
• To work in ways that are sensitive to the needs of children and young people from a wide range of racial, cultural and religious backgrounds.
• To be responsible for the screening of referrals to children and Young People’s services.
• To participate directly in the team's duty rotas.
• To exercise responsibility and autonomy, within supervisory, managerial and accountability structures, for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients.
• To deliver care co-ordination, ensuring effective assessment, care planning and risk management processes are maintained.
• Involve the views of children, their families, referring agents and other professionals involved in the network of care including organising multi-agency meetings.
• To produce a clinical formulation and intervention plan founded on evidence-based practice in co-operation with the child, young person and carers.
• To hold responsibility for standards of clinical practice within area of specialist knowledge.
• To work jointly and collaboratively with other team members in order to enhance and develop the provision of services to young people and their families.
• To have an effective knowledge base of other modalities so as to engage and work effectively with colleagues in other disciplines.
• To provide consultation, advice and guidance to junior colleagues.
• To promote effective multi-agency work.
• To contribute theoretical knowledge to the process of managing risk within the multi-agency network.
• Undertake risk management for all children including the protective and risk factors present in the network of significant relationships.
• Identify and respond appropriately to child protection issues, as described with the guidelines of Local Safeguarding Children’s Board and Northwest Boroughs Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust safeguarding policies.
• Maintain clear and comprehensive electronic clinical records, to ensure information is accurate and complies with Data Protection Act and professional body and Trust standards.
• To engage with using routine outcome measures as clinically appropriate including their use in clinical practice and inputting data into clinical records.
• To work collaboratively with children, young people and their families and contribute to the trust’s service user participation agenda.

COMMUNICATION

• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both multi and uni-disciplinary care.
• To effectively communicate professional opinions, verbally and in writing to other relevant professionals.
• Attend Child Protection Case conferences as a representative from children and young people’s mental health services.
• Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information to children, young people and families and to other professionals within young people’s services.
• Communicate effectively with children, young people and their carers, when in crisis and in challenging family situations.
• Organise and facilitate multi-agency meetings and reviews.
• Elicit highly sensitive information using engagement/communication skills which are appropriate to the young person’s stage of development.
• Work, as part of an integrated multi-professional team, ensuring good communication and working relationships with other professionals.
• Provide written reports detailing the progress of the mental health intervention.

TEACHING, TRAINING AND SUPERVISION

• Participate in regular supervision, engage in reflective practice and committed to continued development.
• To provide training to other professionals to improve mental health knowledge and skills in line with the transformation of children and young people’s mental health services.
• To provide specific training and/or presentations to other agencies, statutory and voluntary, and promote and deliver specialist training programmes.
• To contribute to training placements for a range of professional disciplines from different backgrounds so that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to positive change.
• To assess trainees' competencies and write placement reports for trainees in line with Trust, professional body regulations.
• Work collaboratively with partner agencies within the principles of THRIVE, including joint working, consultation, and training aiming to develop joint working across agencies.
• Maintaining registration/accreditation requirements in accordance with the appropriate professional body in line with their professional qualification.
• Be accountable for own clinical practice and professional behaviour.

MANAGEMENT, POLICY AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT

• Identify priorities within and initiatives within the service and advise managers on the level of resources for service development.
• Contribute to the service’s evidence-based practice by engaging with audits and evaluations as appropriate.
• To contribute to recruitment processes by assisting with shortlisting, interviewing and the induction of recruited staff.
• To support the workload of colleagues within the service through co-working practices.

RESEARCH AND SERVICE EVALUATION

• To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of the evidence base in relation to mental health knowledge and other interventions.
• To contribute to planning and implementing systems for evaluation and monitoring of therapeutic practice and outcomes of clinical work within the service.
• Participate in research, evaluation and audit in response to the clinical and professional interest of the post, and to monitor standards, quality and consumer reaction to the provision of services in accordance with NICE guidance.
• Participate in appropriate audit, quality assurance programmes and research as directed.

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• To receive and engage in regular clinical supervision in accordance with Trust Clinical Governance Standards and the Code of Practice and ethical guidelines of professional body.
• To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice through active participation in internal and external CPD training in consultation with the post holder's service manager to meet professional body requirements for CPD and registration.
• To contribute to the development of best practice in the service by taking part in regular supervision and appraisal and maintaining awareness of current developments in the field.
• To maintain professional body registration.