• Are you interested in a role with Thought-Full: 'Mental Health Support Teams in Schools' (MHSTs)?
• Do you have experience in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)?
• Do you have experience in supervision and leadership?

If so, we are recruiting a Band 8a Senior Psychological Therapist (CBT) to join us. MHSTs were developed following the 2017 Green Paper - Transforming Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Provision. We have three core functions:

• To deliver evidence-based interventions to children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties
• To support schools to develop their whole school approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing
• To provide timely advice to school/ college staff to ensure that young people get the right support at the right time

Main duties of the job

As a Senior Psychological Therapist in Thought-Full you will work closely with the Service Lead and Educational Psychologists, playing a key role in the development and delivery of Thought-Full in West Sussex.

You will work with another Senior Psychological Therapist, supporting all the teams across West Sussex. You will oversee the clinical governance of the service. This will mean ensuring appropriate guidance and policies are in place for all aspects of the clinical delivery of the service (e.g. clinical standards, risk, supervision). This will involve utilising research and service development skills as well as leadership skills. As MHSTs are predominantly based on a CBT model, sound knowledge and experience of delivering low and high intensity CBT interventions, and supervision of CBT practitioners, is essential. Knowledge of other key theories and models when working with children and young people is also required.

You will also oversee the supervision in the service. You will supervise Band 7 Senior Mental Health Practitioners and ensure that supervision of assistant, junior and trainee practitioners is provided. You will support the clinical development of the team and deliver appraisals alongside service managers.

About us

Sussex Partnership provides mental health and learning disability care for all age groups across Sussex and for children and young people in Hampshire.

We encourage flexible working. We know that a positive work/ life balance brings about huge health-related benefits, which has a positive impact on the care we provide. Please speak to us about flexible working, for example, home-working, part time hours, flexible start/ finish times or anything else. If it works for you and works for the role, we'll do our best to make it happen.

We'd love you to join our Trust, rated 'good' overall and 'outstanding' for caring by the CQC. Our staff agree, in our recent staff survey 82% told us that they recognise that care for patients is our top priority.

Other key survey results:

• 70% highlighting flexible working as a key point for satisfaction at work
• 79% reporting feeling able to make suggestions to improve the work in their team
• 77% identifying opportunities to show initiative in their roles

Job description Job responsibilities

We are an innovative integrated model with Thought-Full being delivered across both Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and the Education and Skills department of West Sussex County Council. We already have 4 teams in North West Crawley, Bognor & Felpham, Mid-Sussex and Worthing. In September we will be setting up two new teams in Chichester and a second team in Crawley and in September 2023 we will be setting up 3 further teams in West Sussex, which will take us to 52% coverage by March 2024.

Thought-Full (the name of the West Sussex Mental Health Support Teams in Schools) is a unique, integrated team led by West Sussex County Council and Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. This work is a crucial strand of the Governments 2017 Green Paper Transforming Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Provision and part of the strategic vision for the development of childrens mental health provision across Sussex as described in the Foundations for our Future strategic plan. Mental Health Support Teams in Schools (MHST) sit within the getting help aspect of the Thrive model.

This role will work alongside another Senior Psychological Therapist, across all the sites in West Sussex.

In order to be a successful Senior Psychological Therapist in our team you will be:

• Registered with the NMC, HCPC or BABCP via a core professional qualification Applications are welcomed from OTs, Nurses, Social Workers, Psychologists and CBT Therapists
• Experienced/ trained in CBT
• Experienced working with Children and Young People suffering from mental health difficulties
• Passionate about supporting the prevention and early intervention of mental health difficulties for children and young people Experienced working within a mental health setting
• Experience in supervision
• Experience of leadership

It would also be advantageous if you are:

• Experienced working within a school or have a good understanding of the school system

Person Specification Qualifications Essential

• Doctoral level qualification in a. clinical or counselling Psychology, or equivalent or extensive experience of delivering psychological therapies to an equivalent level
• Post Graduate Training in CBT to diploma, masters or doctorate level.

Experience and Knowledge Essential

• Extensive experience of undertaking psychological therapy with patients with common mental health disorders
• Experience of treating patients with a range of psychotherapy presentations
• Experience of working in a range of mental health settings including Primary Care, outpatient, community.
• Application of CBT to complex mental health problems.
• Psychological theories that relate to human lifespan.
• Capacity to work with different professions and disciplines.
• Ability to work with challenging behaviour in therapy.
• Knowledge of work / mental wellbeing link and integration with psychological therapy interventions.

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

354-CS-20975-E