Job overview

“I love working in CAIST for the difference we can make in a young person’s and their family/carer’s life, through their most difficult times.” Come and join our award winning team!

Is your passion working creatively with children and families? Looking for a role with flexible working opportunities?

We are excited to offer an opportunity to join our Award Winning Under 18’s Crisis Service as a Senior Mental Health Practitioner (SMHP) supporting young people and their families across Norfolk and Waveney.

We have bases in East, Central & West Norfolk; we allocate a base closest to where you live. The role is peripatetic so on occasion you may need to travel to different sites, so being able to travel independently is essential.

The CAIST (Crisis, Assessment & Intensive Support Team) service is a vibrant and dynamic service that has 3 teams based across Norfolk & Waveney and currently offers an 08.00 to 20.00 service, 7 days a week.

The team offers community based intensive support to children, young people & their families. CAIST aim to establish trusting therapeutic relationships, to reduce risks when children & young people may be experiencing high levels of distress.

When you join CAIST, you can expect your role to be varied and diverse – no two days are ever the same! 

Main duties of the job

Don’t just take our word for it, hear what one of the team said about working with us:

“The team consists of a variety of great individuals from all backgrounds and skills, who feel passionately about supporting young people and what we do; this is demonstrated in the hard work and passion for the job.

Despite being challenging at times, working within the CAIST team is incredibly rewarding. Skill development and progression is encouraged to continually evolve and expand the service and I feel proud to be a part of such an amazing team.”

Whilst experience in working with children and young people would make you perfectly suited to this role, we are really open to welcoming people from clinical backgrounds who have experience in other areas of mental health.  We understand that you will be able to bring with you a wealth of skills and experience to the team and would welcome new ways of thinking.

We are looking for people to join us with enthusiasm, optimism, fresh ideas and energy.  We will expect you to want to work clinically but be equally as comfortable being part of strategic decision making.

We would love to hear from you if you have experience in working with people who suffer with mental health difficulties, and you have at least 12 months post qualification experience in a mental health setting or similar.

Working for our organisation

Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.

Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established nursing networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.

Why Norfolk and Suffolk? The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.