Mental Health Therapeutic Practitioner

**Benefits**: 33 days annual leave, pension, life assurance, an employee assistance programme, cycle to work scheme, diploma - masters level training, travel reimbursed for all journeys other than to allocated home service.

About us:
Community Housing and Therapy (CHT) is a leading provider of Psychologically Informed Recovery Communities - 'where relationships are the treatment'. CHT works with adults and young people who have challenging and complex needs, many of whom have experienced negative childhood experiences or trauma, within a psycho-developmental framework in order to create an environment where the individual needs are met to enhance development, health and wellbeing with the aim of them moving on to lead successful and productive lives.

We offer a good working environment and great staff development as part of a small organisation that is passionate about providing high quality developmental support to young persons and adults experiencing mental distress and complex psychosocial disorders. We have a strong sense of values, a clear treatment and support model based on relational psychology, client participation and recovery, and a highly supportive clinical and management framework.

**Purpose of role**:
We are recruiting for a Mental Health Therapeutic Practitioner to join our team. Mount Lodge is a residential Psychologically Informed Recovery Community in Eastbourne, East Sussex comprising of 16 residents and an enthusiastic multi-disciplinary team. Therapeutic Practitioners link our residents to the groups and to the wider community. They build relationships, maintain thinking around boundaries or supported living settings and support residents to achieve the goals of their recovery. They help to maintain the therapeutic culture by facilitating a range of therapeutic groups and individual activities. Therapeutic Practitioners hold in mind the individual and their barriers to participation, enabling our residents to do more with each other and for themselves. Practitioners also participate fully in training and supervision sessions.

**Primary tasks**
- To build supportive and therapeutic relationships with clients
- To participate in the life of the service as a member of the community in line with CHT’s Psychologically Informed Environment model.
- To facilitate various groups within the community under the supervision of the Service Manager and Community Psychologist
- To co-produce clear and structured recovery, risk management and move-on plans with clients, working with the client both formally and informally towards their recovery goals
- To administer medication according to CHT’s policies and procedures
- Maintain excellent working relationships with Care Teams and Families.
- To aid clients in integrating into the community, both within the service and in the wider community
- To prepare and attend review meetings for key work clients and prepare progress reports
- To participate in formal reflective practice sessions run by the Community Psychologist
- To participate in CHT’s internal training programme and periodic masterclasses
- To promote equality and diversity in their practice
- To share everyday administrative duties including writing up handovers, completing medication records, and various client focused reports
- To co-ordinate the collection and support in analysis of outcome measures

**Person Specification**
- Experience of working with or lived experience of complex mental health conditions
- Understanding of and ability to reflect upon professional boundaries
- Have a positive and compassionate attitude to working with those with complex mental health conditions as well as a belief and commitment to recovery
- Understanding the support requirements of people with mental health and other associated conditions.
- Ability to establish an effective working relationship with clients which is attachment centred and based on the Recovery approach including the skills for comprehensive assessment and action planning.
- Have good interpersonal skills including active listening, clear and thorough information sharing and good verbal communication skills.
- Ability to respond appropriately and effectively and de-escalate situations when faced with challenging or violent behaviour.
- Good written, numeracy and administrative skills e.g.: ability to accurately and competently record comprehensive assessments, action plans and letters.
- An awareness and understanding of Health & Safety issues related to working in a residential service
- The ability to initiate and maintain constructive and appropriate relations with clients and external agencies
- Enthusiasm and commitment to engage in professional development and ongoing training
- Willingness and ability to work shifts including evenings, weekends bank holidays along with occasional night shifts
- Willingness to work flexibly in response to changing organisational requirement
- COVID-19 considerations:

- Covid-19 pre