Trainee Education Wellbeing Practitioner (EMHP) | East NHS Foundation Trust

Are you interested in a career in CYP mental health?

Would you like to be involved in developing the Tower Hamlets Education Wellbeing Service (THEWS), delivering support to pupils, their families and teaching staff in education environments across the borough? THEWS is part of a national initiative to introduce Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) inschools across England. The core aims of the service are to deliver evidence-based interventions for children and young people and to support schools in developing their whole school approach to improving wellbeing.

In line with the government’s priority to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) role is an exciting opportunity to deliver evidence-based early interventions, working across both educational settings and healthcare sectors in MHSTs in England. The trainingprogrammefor this post is 12 months in duration and will consist of academic and supervised practice learning across mental health services and educational settings, such as primary and secondary schools, and further education colleges.

Delivery of theprogrammewill be provided through a combination of taught days within UCL in collaboration with The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, independent self-guided study days, and experience gained in education wellbeing and mainstream mental health services.

Successful candidates will enroll in a full-time educationalprogrammespecifically for the role. The course fees are fully funded, and salary support for the post will be funded at the NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) Band 4, starting at the bottom of the scale. You will gain credits towards a postgraduate diploma-level qualification and secure guaranteed employment on successful completion of the trainingprogramme.

Upon providing evidence of the postgraduate award certificate, the role will progress to NHS Agenda for Change (AfC) Band 5, with salarycommencingat the bottom of the Band 5 pay scale.

For the training year, successful candidates will be employed by ELFT-TH CAMHS andlocatedin educational settings.

East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) provides awide range of community and inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, older adults and forensic services to the City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets (TH), Bedfordshire and  TH, ELFT provides high standard mental health services for children and young people based on strong partnerships with the Borough’s education and social care services, community health services and voluntary/third sector agencies.

TH is a rapidly growing, vibrant inner-city borough with a young ethnically diverse population who experience some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country. There is a high prevalence of mental health difficulties amongst young people and a high proportion of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). In December 2018 Tower Hamlets was named a trailblazer site to pilot the Green Paper Transforming Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Provision initiatives to improve mental health support in school settings, including the establishment of Mental Health Support Teams (MHST).

Within Tower Hamlets, our MHST is called the Tower Hamlets Education Wellbeing Service (THEWS). The Green Paper ambitions fit with Tower Hamlets existing strategic direction for Children and Young Peoples Mental Health, to build capacity for early intervention and prevention across local partnerships.

Please refer to the attached Job Description and Person Specification for details.

Dual Application Process

All applicantsareexpected to apply for the Educational Mental Health Practitioner PG Dip course at UCL which is delivered by Anna Freud. Those that are successful at job interviews will only progress to employment by also securing a place on the course (and vice versa).

Youare required tomake a separate application for the university course as soon as the University Portal is open.

UCL EMHP October 2026 cohort link: will shared with shortlisted applicant.

For more information and/or an informal discussion, please contact:
Ifeyinwa Ezeifedi,Clinical Team Lead, THEWS