MHST Clinical Service Lead

Closing date is 22 March 2026

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Lewisham Mental Health Support Team (MHST) is an early intervention and prevention service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people (CYP) in education settings. Lewisham MHST is organised in a North and South Team and is expected to support 92 education settings by December 2029.

The post holder will provide operational and strategic leadership across the three MHST core functions:

• Delivering evidence‑based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues.
• Supporting the senior mental health lead in each education setting to introduce or develop their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.
• Giving timely advice to school and college staff, and liaising with external specialist services to help children and young people get the right support and stay in education.

The post holder is responsible to support local workforce development in line with local and national transformation plans to ensure a coordinated approach across the MHST, including clear lines of reporting and governance, and the process for escalating any problems or issues.

The post holder is responsible for the day‑to‑day operational management of the South Team, consisting of two clusters, each responsible for supporting approximately 20‑25 education settings situated in South Lewisham.

Key responsibilities include:

• Quality assurance: ensuring the MHST Hubs are delivering consistent, high‑quality mental health support, care and interventions, with appropriate and adequate clinical supervision; ensuring clear processes around data collection, record keeping, information sharing and managing complaints.

• Provide assessments, formulations and interventions for clients referred to the Mental Health Support Team and/or offer supervision to other members of the team in providing those.
• Support and empower children, young people and families to make informed choices about the intervention.
• Support children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their families in the self‑management of presenting difficulties.
• Work in partnership with families to provide culturally appropriate psychological interventions with carers or families of referred clients when required.
• Assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
• Act as care co‑ordinator taking responsibility for the oversight of cases within the Mental Health Support team.
• Provide support for EMHPs and CWPs in using CYP IAPT compliant routine outcome measures.
• Ensure clear objectives are identified, discussed and reviewed with EMHPs and CWPs on a regular basis as part of their continuing professional development.
• Contribute to the effective working of the team or service and to a psychologically informed framework for the service.
• Contribute to the team or service's delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.
• Be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.
• Advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients.
• Where appropriate liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients in order to develop and review care plans.
• Utilise theory, evidence‑based literature and research to support evidence‑based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
• Manage the team budget and resources, taking care of and using Trust equipment and physical resources efficiently, and deploy resources in line with Trust, local and national guidelines.

• Entry‑level qualification: appropriately registered Educational/Clinical/Counselling psychologist, Systemic Family Therapist, Psychotherapist, Nurse, OT, Social Work CBT Therapist and registration with relevant UK governing body.
• Completed training course in clinical supervision.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by relevant Professional body e.g. HCPC/UKCP/RCN/SWE/BABCP.
• PG qualification in Leading on Transformation &…