Community Mental Health Practitioner

Job overview Preston East Community Mental Health Team (CMHT) are looking to recruit a Band 6 Mental Health practitioner to our busy and friendly team. The applicant must to be registered with a relevant professional body. This is a permanent 37.5 hour contract. This post is suitable for registered Mental Health Nurses, Social Workers and Occupational Therapists The team are based at West Strand House in the centre of Preston, and serves a vibrant and diverse population. It is an established team with a friendly and supportive culture with a visible and supportive leadership team who are committed to clinical supervision and professional development of all staff. This is an interesting and rewarding role in a busy service. Ideally, you will have current or previous experience in a community setting and be able to work effectively in a multi professional context. You should have a collaborative and enthusiastic approach as well as passion and commitment in developing and promoting recovery based approaches for adults with complex mental health needs. Main duties of the job The main job role is to perform duties as a keyworker. As a keyworker you will manage a caseload of service users with a range of complex mental health needs. You will develop Dialog+ care plans and deliver evidence based interventions and treatments to patients alongside managing risks in the community. The post requires that you are a good communicator, and are able to adopt a flexible, adaptable and proactive approach to your work. Part of your role will require you to undertake the role of team duty worker. This role involves managing unplanned patient work within the team, responding to escalation of risk/crisis situations and may also include assessing of new referrals. There is an expectation that the successful candidate will take on some leadership activities such as contributing to the learning and development of junior team members taking a lead on/or contributing to projects identified by the leadership team. In return you will benefit from encouragement to continue to develop your own specialist knowledge and competence. Your development will be guided using clinical supervision, management supervision, Team/Peer support, internal and external training opportunities and the Trust’s appraisal process. Detailed job description and main responsibilities • Undertake specialist health, occupational or social care needs assessments, including detailed risk assessments. • Formulate specialist multi-disciplinary treatment and intervention plans under the Care Programme Approach. • Act as Key Worker for service users with severe and enduring mental illness. • Implement therapeutic interventions following appropriate skills training. • Maintain high standards of care and regularly review treatment plans. • Provide clinical and professional supervision to junior staff. • Actively manage own caseload and contribute to duty screening and urgent assessment processes. • Engage with service users and families experiencing challenging circumstances. • Undertake home visits and participate in child and adult safeguarding procedures. • Administer depot medication where applicable (Registered Nurses only). • Provide and receive highly complex and sensitive information, including in situations where there may be barriers to communication such as hallucinations, delusional ideation or language needs. • Maintain and promote effective working relationships with all referral agencies. • Act as an advocate for service users and carers, promoting empowerment and engagement. For more details on this vacancy please review the attached job description and person specification.