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Job summary

Main area
CAMHS
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 7
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
311-HYM793-26-A
Employer
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Tameside and Glossop CAMHS
Town
waterloo road Stalybridge
Salary
£49,387 - £56,515 PA, pro rata
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
16/07/2026 23:59

Employer heading

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust logo

Senior Mental Health Practitioner Cared for children pathway

NHS AfC: Band 7

 

If you are Kind, Fair, Ingenious and Determined then we want you to come and join our #PennineCarePeople

https://www.penninecare.nhs.uk/values

 

Job overview

 

This post is based in Tameside CAMHS

Pennine Care are proud to be developing our clinical offer for Cared For Children and Care Leavers, in conjunction with our local authority partners and colleagues across the Greater Manchester area. We aspire to provide our cared for children with high quality, trauma-informed services, and reduce the disadvantages faced by children when moving between boroughs.

Our borough based Senior Mental Health Practitioners will each be supported by a Specialist Principal Clinical Psychologist, and have close links with their local CAMHS team. They will join the wider Cared For and Care Leavers clinical team across the five boroughs of the Pennine Care footprint, led by Consultant Clinical Psychologists, with access to specialist expertise from across the CAMHS clinical hub, including Speech and Language Therapy expertise and DDP specialist supervision.

This is an exciting time to join the Cared For and Care Leavers Pathway, as we develop our shared service culture and refine our clinical offer to support the mental health and wellbeing needs of our cared for children and their carers. We are seeking passionate and experienced CAMHS nurses and social workers who are ready to develop their specialist skills as Senior Mental Health Practitioners for this vulnerable group.

 

 

Main duties of the job

Our post-holders will provide highly specialist advice and consultation to social workers and other professionals around the needs of children in care; will facilitate direct and indirect assessments and therapeutic interventions with cared for children and their parents or carers (including foster carers and family and friends carers), support the development and delivery of training and reflective practice and facilitate the clinical supervision of other professionals to undertake therapeutic interventions. Relevant training and CPD opportunities will be considered to facilitate aspects of the role and service provision. The support, development and well-being of our workforce are the foundations on which we continue to develop services to ensure children and young people receive optimal care.

Working for our organisation

We are proud to provide high quality mental health and learning disability services, both inpatient and in the community across five boroughs of Greater Manchester - Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport and Tameside and Glossop.

Our vision is for a happier and more hopeful life for everyone in our communities and our staff work hard to deliver the very best care for the people who use our services. We’re really proud of our #PennineCarePeople and do everything we can to make sure we’re a great place to work.

All individuals regardless of race, age, disability, ethnicity, nationality, gender, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership are encouraged to apply for this post. We would also encourage applications from individuals with a lived experience of mental illness, either individually or as a carer.

If you come and work for us we will offer a range of benefits and opportunities, including:

  • Generous annual leave entitlement for Agenda for Change and Medical and Dental staff.
  • Flexible working opportunities to support your work/life balance
  • Access to Continued Professional Development
  • Involvement in improvement and research activities
  • Health and Wellbeing activities and access to an excellent staff wellbeing service
  • Access to staff discounts across retail, leisure and travel

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Main Duties and Responsibilities
Clinical
• To ensure high quality and specialist psychological assessment of the children and families involved in the service. This will be based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews.
• To manage and if appropriate to clinically supervise CAMHS practitioners in managing their own caseloads
• To be responsible for and manage a defined caseload and undertake key-worker responsibilities within the caseload, making autonomous decisions concerning service delivery, risk management, referrals to other agencies and discharge.
• To make independent clinical decisions about the appropriate therapeutic interventions for each young person and/or families, in accordance with individualassessed need and formulation and to support access to/provide this intervention, including those young people with learning difficulties.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of children and young people whose problems are managed by psychologically informed plans.
• To work with families/carers of young people experiencing mental health difficulties.
• To provide consultation to support the provision of a high standard of mental health support to children and families from other professionals.
• To identify and develop strategies to manage risks to the young person and others in line with Pennine Care procedures and protocols.
• To liaise closely with a wide range of agencies regarding individual care packages, to advise on risk management and to promote awareness of Child and Adolescent Mental Health issues within these agencies.
• To use highly developed communication skills in working with people to understand their personal and often very sensitive difficulties.
• To partake in the clinical triage of referrals into service and respond accordingly.To provide/delegate managerial and clinical supervision to workers within the CAMHS service
• To contribute to peer supervision and peer review of cases and in conjunction with the CAMHS team to ensure that own supervision needs are met.
• To support other agencies working with young people i.e. to facilitate their ability to support presenting mental health needs in children and young people.
• To provide consultation and training on a wide range of children’s emotional health and well-being issues, with specific consideration of the needs of the Cared for Children Population, to professionals from a range of services including GP’s, Children’s Social Care and Primary Care Services, Adult Mental Health Services, Youth Offending Services and Education Services.
• To engage in/deliver managerial and clinical supervision, including with appropriate consent, recording and reviewing of live clinical work.
• To participate in the emergency and duty rota in CAMHS.
• Ensure collection of relevant information required by Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.
• To routinely monitor effectiveness of clinical work by use of Routine Outcome Measures (ROMs) and where outcomes are not improving for children and families to engage in clinical review via peer review meetings and supervision.
• To carry out clinical audits of service performance, including service user surveys and evaluations,

For further details please see job description in the main application form. 

Person specification

Education/qualifications

Essential criteria
  • Registered Nurse-Mental Health with NMC registration/social worker with SW registration
Desirable criteria
  • Accredited membership of an appropriate psychological therapy professional body Additional further training in the use of children's attachment assessment tools . Training in specialist therapeutic work with children, young people and families e.g. DBT, CBT, EMDR, DDP, FT, theraplay

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Substantial experience of working within a health delivered child and adolescent mental health outpatient/community service . Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for the psychological care and treatment as an autonomous practitioner with complex and challenging service users within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of cross-sector working e.g. within CAMHS and childrens social care. Experience of working with cared for children . Experience of working in diverse cultural and ethnic contexts. Experience of consultation. Experience of clinically supervising / or line managing others

Knowledge

Essential criteria
  • Highly developed knowledge of mental health issues in young people and of issues relevant for cared for children and their families . Knowledge of relevant legislation and national policies in relation to children and young people. Highly developed knowledge of a range of therapeutic interventions with this client group
Desirable criteria
  • Knowledge and experience of working with young people with learning disability. Evidence of post qualification training courses/certificates.

work related circumstances

Essential criteria
  • Ability to work unsocial hours and weekends. Use of car or access to a means of mobility to travel across the Trust footprint in line with service needs. Willing to carry out all duties and responsibilities of the post in accordance with the Trusts Equal Opportunities and equality and diversity policies . Appointments to regulated and controlled activities require an enhanced DBS

Skills and abilities

Essential criteria
  • Substantial experience of working within a health delivered child and adolescent mental health outpatient/community service. Good communication skills. Experience of using full clinical responsibility for the psychological care and treatment as an autonomous practitioner . Ability to perform complex psychological assessments. Ability to develop packages of care based on assessed needs and formulation. Ability to develop a range of therapeutic activities across a range of settings. Ability to manage risk in individuals presenting with mental health needs. Ability to provide and receive complex sensitive or contentious information often within a hostile ,antagonistic or highly emotive atmosphere. Ability to act in consultation/supervision/training capacity with professionals. Ability to develop liaison /links and familiarity with other professional networks. Ability to prioritise key tasks and targets for intervention . n . .
Desirable criteria
  • Ability to evaluate service initiatives for effectiveness / outcome . Ability to work as a member of a team within and beyond organisational boundaries . Ability to keep accurate data for audit/evaluation. Ability to work strategically to develop the CAMHS cared for childrens service . Ability to develop and audit the effectiveness of protocols.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Veteran AwareNo smoking policyDisability confident employerNorth West BAME

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Marijke Lansbergen
Job title
Principal Psychologist Cared for pathway
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
0161 716 3600

If you have problems applying, contact

Address
Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust
225 Old Street
225 Old Street
OL6 7SR
Telephone
01617163181
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