Educational Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP)

Job summary

The MHSTs are a new service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people in education settings. They are made up of senior clinicians, CAMHS Practitioners and EMHPs or also known in SLaM as Education Wellbeing Practitioners (EWPs) . They will be based across education settings as an additional resource within a whole-system approach to promote resilience and wellbeing, support earlier intervention, enable appropriate signposting and deliver evidence-based support, care and interventions. The MHSTs will partner with their education settings to design a bespoke offer, based on the school's individual needs and will work with the mental health services that are already in place, such as counselling, educational psychology, school nurses, pastoral care, educational welfare officers, VCSEs, the local authority, including children's social care, and NHS Children and Young People Mental Health Services (CYPMHS).

The successful candidate will be employed by the MHST deliver emotional wellbeing interventions using Guided Self Help strategies. You will be confident in providing Guided Self Help to young people and families in anxiety, low mood and challenging behaviours. You will be flexible and creative in responding to the needs of the school populations, with excellent support from your team and supervision. You will also be able to adapt to working remotely and prioritising access to services and resources.

Main duties of the job

As a qualified EMHP you will have successfully completed training as a trainee EMHP/CWP . You will be equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and capabilities to work as a qualified EMHP/CWP, as an autonomous and responsible practitioner within your scope of practice, alongside education and health colleagues under the supervision of senior members of staff.

You will be confident in providing manualised 1-1 and group interventions based on Guided Self Help with young people and families in anxiety, low mood and behaviours that challenge.

You are expected to liaise and work effectively with the wider network around the child including educational, social care, family and health.

Support and facilitate activities under the PSHE whole school approach framework.

Improve access to mental health and wellbeing support, working with cultural diverse populations and adapting services to improve access.

About us

Lambeth Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) provides multidisciplinary assessment, diagnostic, treatment, advisory and consultative service for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioural disorders, in particular those at high risk or those with more severe and persistent problems associated with psychiatric disorder. The London Borough of Lambeth has a population of 317,800 (GLA 2020). Lambeth's population is highly diverse, a characteristic visible in the breadth of ethnic and cultural traditions seen throughout the borough. It is estimated that 63% of the population describe their ethnicity as other than White British; 23% describe their ethnicity as Black (11% Black African, 7% Black Caribbean and 5% Other Black), 22% White Other and 6% as Asian. Lambeth has a child and youth population aged 0-20 of almost 70,000. Over 50% of this number are 0 to 9 years old. A high number of school pupils belong to black/minority ethnic groups ( and of children and young people in primary and secondary education respectively have special education needs or disabilities, the UK average is In 2018/2019, of the secondary school population were permanently excluded from local authority schools.

Job description

Job responsibilities

There is a requirement to work with schools remotely and face to face in delivering low level Guided Self Help to Young People and Families. This will be across various educational settings within the Lambeth schools and remote working from home.

EMHP's play a key role as members of the Mental Health Support Team, who will have the responsibility for delivering schools' whole school approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing for children and young people.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Successful completion of the HEE commissioned 1yr 'Education Mental Health Practitioner' post graduate diploma or completion of Certificate in Children's Wellbeing Practice (CWP), with post qualification experience as a CWP and experience of working in schools.

Desirable

Evidence of CPD -Continuous Professional Development in Child and Adolescent Mental Health or Family work training

Experience

Essential

Experience of working with children and young people, their families and others in educational and health settings with mild to moderate mental health problems.

Experience of delivering specific therapeutic interventions to children, young people or their families ( Guided Self Help, CBT, parent work)

Experience of liaising and working effectively with the wider network around the child including educational, social care, family and health.

Experience of working with cultural diverse populations and adapting services to improve access.

Desirable

Experience of liaising and working effectively with the wider network around the child including educational, social care, family and health.

Experience of assessing and meeting the communication needs of the schools to deliver psycho-education on mental health or emotional wellbeing to different groups including parents, teaching staff and young people.

Experience of adapting resources to be able to delivery online/ via phone/ google classroom

Abilities

Essential

Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health interventions with children and families.

Ability to conduct group parenting and group young person programmes

Ability to work within educational settings to increase mental health awareness within the staff group

Ability to make an assessment of risk and to record and communicate it appropriately and to take appropriate action to mitigate or manage