Mental Health

Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner

Reporting to

Head of Outcomes for Children, Young People and Families

Department

Grosvenor Hart Homes

Primary location

Chester and surrounding areas

Other locations

Occasional travel outside of Chester to London and within the Northwest of England.

Context

Grosvenor Hart Homes (GHH) is a new social enterprise, established by the Duke of Westminster on a mission to improve outcomes for vulnerable children, young people and their families through the provision of high-quality, affordable homes, alongside individually tailored, wrap-around support. GHH's vision is to support families to achieve their own goals and to sustain a viable lifestyle, where children and young people can thrive and reach their potential. Our homes are therefore targeted at particular groups within the community including young people leaving care, families living in temporary accommodation, families affected by domestic abuse, families with children on the edge of care.

Role Purpose

To provide high-quality, timely mental health assessment and support to children, young people and families who are GHH tenants or who are applying for a GHH tenancy.

This will involve working to secure the best outcomes for tenants and their families in relation to mental health and wellbeing by undertaking assessments and triaging to understand mental health needs and recommending required treatment. The post holder will co-ordinate referrals to specialist mental health providers from a network of high-quality statutory, third and private sector agencies.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner will provide low level, non-clinical support to prevent escalation and enhance wellbeing on an individual and group basis.

As this is a new addition to our front line multi-disciplinary team, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner will play a key role in further developing partnership relationships and will be the subject matter expert for mental health and wellbeing for the organisation.

The role will work closely with the GHH Family Assistant (FA) Service, who work directly with our tenants to address their needs and remove barriers to their success to help them achieve their goals according to an agreed support plan.

Key responsibilities

The main responsibilities of this role will be to:

• Gather baseline data on customers' mental health and feelings of wellbeing and monitor the impact of interventions over the course of their engagement with GHH.
• Provide timely mental health assessments for GHH tenants and applicants as part of the referral and assessment process, identifying the most appropriate pathways to achieving positive outcomes.
• Advise on diagnosis and triage mental conditions and recommended pathways of treatment which can then be ratified by Primary Care, including prescriptions.
• Facilitate timely screening for ADHD/ASD by direct delivery or by referral to relevant assessment service.
• Further develop relationships with local primary care providers and community wellbeing providers.
• Develop and maintain GHH's network of specialist high-quality mental health providers to support a range of mental health conditions, employing Due Diligence and Quality Assurance frameworks.
• Manage commissioning and spot purchase relationships with partners providing mental health and wellbeing support services to tenants when rapid access is required.
• Provide timely non-clinical, low level mental health and wellbeing support to prevent escalation in mental health conditions.
• Co-ordinate wellbeing activities and elements of the GHH life skills curriculum.
• Provide an assessment of mental health needs as an integral part of GHH's overall assessment.
• Sit on the GHH tenant matching panel as the subject matter expert for mental health and wellbeing.
• Work closely with the FA service to support the mental health elements of a tenant's 'My Plan', keeping accurate and up-to-date records of interventions and outcomes.
• Have the experience and capability to manage, hold and de-escalate risk.
• Advise GHH on sensory environment for neurodiversity.
• Provide clinical supervision to other GHH service areas.
• Adhere to the safeguarding policies and procedures of GHH, taking an active role in the safeguarding of tenants.
• Participate in supervision and regular team meetings, taking responsibility for own work and escalating concerns.
• Provide feedback, progress reports and contribute to evaluations for internal and external stakeholders as required.
• Provide occasional mental health support to tenants or to other staff supporting tenants in times of crisis, outside of office hours.

In addition, the role requires the following responsibilities:

• To continuously develop and improve
• To comply with company policy and best practise in security, legal and regulatory compliance
• To carry out duties, within the relevant legislation at all times and be familiar with the terms of all current legislation relevant to the role
• To ensure Health and Safety responsibilities are fulfilled, including:
  • To have responsibility for personal safety and the safety of others
  • To ensure that all H&S responsibilities are fulfilled, and that safety and welfare is maintained.
• Plan enough time for work to be done in a healthy and safe way.
• To assume delegated authority to take aversive/proactive action where appropriate to prevent a potential situation escalating to an accident or health and safety failure.
• To complete any other duties as required from time to time.

Essential skills and attributes:

Qualifications:

Essential

• Registered Mental Health Nurse (minimum Band 7, maximum Band 8a)

Desirable

• Qualified and regulated to complete assessments for ADHD/ASD

Experience

• Experience of working with a wide range of mental health conditions.
• Recent experience of working in a clinical setting, preferably delivering Children and Young People's Mental Health services.
• Extensive experience of delivering assessments of mental health need, including identification of the type of need, recommendation of treatment plans and knowledge of good quality delivery partners to address specific needs.
• Knowledge and experience of screening for ADHD/ ASD and signposting to assessment services.
• Experience of successfully supporting individuals to prevent escalation of conditions until their treatment pathway is in place.
• Experience of triaging urgent referrals, identifying the most appropriate routeway for support.
• Experience of leading commissioning and quality assurance of providers.
• Experience of building strong networks and partnerships.
• Experience of undertaking risk assessments and implementing risk management measures.
• Knowledge of relevant current issues and research, including emerging trends, within the field of mental health and wellbeing.
• Working knowledge of trauma informed, therapeutic and asset-based approaches of support.
• Experience of delivering training.
• Navigation of mental health services and the NHS, and relevant policies.
• Understanding and experience of Performance Management regarding practice and target achievement
• IT literate, with good working knowledge of Microsoft Office

Skills

• Excellent interpersonal skills, able to build trusted relationships and develop compassionate, empathetic, and supportive relationships with tenants.
• Outstanding problem solving skills.
• A good and clear communicator (written and oral).
• Reliable with strong work ethic.
• Attention to detail and dedication to providing quality, error free work.
• Professionalism, discretion and maintaining confidentiality at all times.
• Commitment to making a positive difference to the lives of others.
• Ability to work well with different individuals.
• Culturally competent and attuned to the needs of a wide range of customers.
• Compassion and empathy.
• Commitment to engaging in individual and group supervision.
• Ability to provide clinical supervision.
• Commitment to own self-care.

All employees must uphold the shared values of Grosvenor:

• Integrity, be honest, fair and open
• Trust, be loyal, reliable and deliver on commitments
• Respect, be inclusive, straightforward, collaborative, caring and thoughtful

Key performance indicators

• Achievement of goals within support plans relating to mental health and wellbeing.
• Successfully engaging prospective and existing GHH tenants in service delivery.
• Supporting residents to achieve positive outcomes as defined through needs assessment tools and evaluations within a reasonable timeframe.
• Establishing and maintaining positive relationships with GHH tenants and key stakeholders

Additional information

This position will ideally working part time hours over 5 days, however we are open to being flexible on work pattern and contractual hours for the right candidate.

You will be expected to work some evenings and weekends and to occasionally travel within the northwest of England and London. This might include some overnight stays.

A full driver's licence and access to a car would be desirable.

This post holder will be required to work with vulnerable people in their own homes and will require an enhanced DBS check.