Senior Mental Health Pracitioner

Are you looking to work for an award winning CAMHS team?

An exciting opportunity has arisen is the CAMHS Outreach service for Children & Adolescents (OSCA) team for a Senior Mental Health Practitioner. You will have the opportunity to work with children and their families who require intensive community support and find it difficult to engage with generic CAMHs services.

You will need to be flexible, adaptable and creative in your approach to working with children and families, as well as multi-agency working, to deliver excellent, holistic care. There will be opportunities to learn from an experienced, well established, multi-disciplinary team, meaning this is an excellent role for someone wishing to develop their knowledge and understanding of working in children's mental health.

The OSCA service is based at Raglan House in Cowley, however provides support county wide within Oxfordshire, meaning there is an expectation to be able to travel to children and families' homes and other clinic bases. There will be opportunities to be part of assessments and delivering evidence-based interventions for children with complex mental health needs. Regular individual (clinical and management) and peer/team supervision is offered to support continual professional development.

The CAMHS OSCA team provides a community-based service to children and young people and their carers who are experiencing serious mental health disorders; In this role the post holder will contribute to the treatment of patient’s and their recovery at the key stages of their journey through mental health services. The OSCA team has two strands of the workforce.

**Outreach**: a part of the service which support young people, who are hard to engage with mental health disorders, which impact them accessing support and therapy from a standard CAMHS service, patient care can occur in a variety of settings such as patient home, school or community.

DBT dialectical behavior therapy; to practice this strand of the post, the applicant will have completed the DBT foundation training, However CAMHS OSCA team can support the successful applicant to build on these competencies including signing off of the homework requirement.

You will be working within a small MDT made up of Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Nurses, Family Therapists, Psychologists and Consultants.

The team strive for the best outcomes for the young people and families we work with, offering excellent patient centered care.

We pride ourselves at having exceptional supervision and reflective spaces that are utilized by clinicians to enhance the work they are offering to young people as well as supporting their own wellbeing and professional development.

Benefits of working for Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust include:

- Excellent opportunities for career progression
- 27 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, with an increase to 33 days with continuous service
- NHS Discount across a wide range of shops, restaurants and retailers
- Staff accommodation
- Competitive pension scheme
- Lease car scheme
- Cycle to work scheme

**In this role, you will be responsible for**:

- Provision of high quality assessments and treatment for young people and their families referred to the service. Utilizing knowledge and skills for interpretation and analysis of patients’ needs.
- Patient care; formulating programs of care and as appropriate undertaking care coordinator role for a small complex case load.
- Provision of appropriate interventions such as family work, cognitive therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, behavioral management, individual counselling and group work with supervision as required. Ability to use an integration of theoretical frameworks to formulate practice.
- Consultation and joint working with other agencies/professionals to provide early interventions in and prevention of mental health problems in young people.
- Flexibility in delivery of care i.e. able to work within other environments in the primary care sector to maximize contact with clients and other agencies

**Please note**:

- New starters have a 6 month probationary period. This, together with the induction process aims to create a positive supportive working environment allowing new employees to learn key elements of their role over a reasonable timescale.
- Employees are expected to undertake mandatory and statutory training related to their role.
- Oxford Health is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.