Specialist Mental Health Practitioner

Job Summary

This post is open to qualified nurses, occupational therapists, and social workers.

Would you like to work for an Outstanding NHS Trust, and an innovative and supportive service that is highly committed to decreasing stigma associated with personality difficulties, promoting optimism about recovery, and increasing access to evidence-based interventions? An exciting opportunity has arisen for qualified mental health practitioners to join the Northamptonshire Personality Disorder hub.

The Northants Personality Disorder Hub is a countywide specialist service that provides a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) programme across the county and leads on the delivery of Structured Clinical Management (SCM) across general mental health services. The service frequently delivers training to community and inpatient teams in order to enhance the capabilities of staff and promote the use of structured and psychologically-informed interventions across the Trust.

It also has a growing Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) that is involved in promoting hope, improving services, and co-developing and delivering staff training.

The post holder will operate as a lead facilitator and coordinator of the service's Understanding and Managing Emotions (U&ME) groups. U&ME is an 18 session group-based skills development programme that aims to help individuals to learn a broader range of strategies for managing their emotions and be more effective in relationships. The group uses Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) materials and was developed to meet the needs of individuals who would have traditionally fallen through the gap between primary and secondary care services.

This post involves liaison with Community Mental Health Teams, Talking Therapies, the Integrated Response Hub and other Specialist Services within the Trust.

Experience of working with people with personality difficulties and the ability to lead group-based interventions is required, as well as excellent collaboration and team-working skills, and a commitment to reduce exclusion and stigma for this client group and improve services.

NHFT is an NHS Community and Mental Health Foundation Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in hospital settings and in the community. We provide over 200 services across the county - as well as some specialist services in bordering and nearby counties. We work together with our partners to ensure that everyone who comes through our doors receives compassionate, person-centred care, regardless of their background or circumstances.

NHFT promotes a culture of learning, to improve the care and safety of our patients and colleagues. We have achieved our 'outstanding' rating by encouraging opportunity, innovation, development and growth across our workforce.

This post will give the successful candidate the opportunity to develop their capabilities under regular supervision and within a supportive and highly motivated multidisciplinary team led by a Service Manager/ Clinical Lead. The team comprises staff from nursing, occupational therapy, clinical psychology and other professional backgrounds, with support for maintaining professional links.

The post holders will primarily work within the U&ME team to:

• Provide assessment to clarify individuals presenting difficulties and suitability for the U&ME programme
• Lead facilitation of group programmes (commitment to delivering our evening group may be required at times)
• Provide on‑going support and direction to co‑facilitators
• Work in collaboration with colleagues within the Personality Disorder Hub to continue to develop the provision. Accountable for ensuring effective needs assessment, development of group content responsive to the needs of service users and referring services, and routine evaluation of the programme that demonstrates its outcomes beyond immediate clinical activity
• Assist colleagues in other NHFT mental health services in developing treatment plans, early identification of personality difficulties and providing guidance regarding appropriate onward referral and access to interventions…