Mental Health Practitioner

We are pleased to announce an exciting opportunity for a Mental Health Practitioner to join our team at HMP Rochester and HMP Cookham Wood. This role provides a unique chance to gain valuable experience working in a prison environment.

As a Mental Health Practitioner you will be providing specialist mental healthcare to offenders and working as part of the Mental Health In-Reach Team, plus wider mental health services. You will be required to work in a psychologically minded way with offenders in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.

Our Mental Health Team provide specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level including; referral management, screening assessment, triage, evidence-based interventions, care planning and risk assessing, plus one-to-one and group-work facilitation.

Our Mental Health Practitioners manage a mixed and challenging caseload and are required to perform robust assessment, screening and interventions to offenders with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. You will contribute to alternatives to inpatient admission and assisting with early discharge through the implementation of high intensity interventions and complex case management arrangements.

Important Sponsorship Information  for this post:
We are currently unable to offer a certificate ofsponsorshipfor this post.

• To provide specialist mental healthcare to service users and to work as part of the Mental Health In-Reach Team and wider MDT.
• To deliver a range of specialist interventions at primary and secondary care level; to include
• Referral management, screening assessment, triage, and evidence- based interventions
• Care Planning and risk assessing
• One-to-one and group-work facilitation
• Managing a mixed and challenging caseload

This position is located at both HMP Rochester and HMP Cookham Wood, and the post holder will be expected to work at both locations depending on service requirements. The post holder will also need to collaborate closely with colleagues at nearby Kent prisons, including HMP Maidstone and HMP East Sutton Park, and may occasionally provide cross-cover between sites.

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Kent, South London, Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

Our healthcare departments operate across six prisons in the Kent cluster each of which require a bespoke service responding to the prisoner and prison needs:

• HMP Standford Hill - Cat D
  - Population = 450
• HMP Maidstone - Cat C - Population = 600
• HMP East Sutton Park - Cat D Population = 90

Our wider services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children's centres, schools and people's homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

• We're Kind
• We Listen
• We Care

• To perform robust assessment, screening, and interventions to service users with mental health and neurodevelopmental and trauma needs.
• Ensure that all waiting time, assessment and interventions are delivered in a timely manner, and positively contribute to the achievement of the services performance targets.
• Ensure integrated and collaborative working with other specialist services, including continuity of care and through the gate arrangements and liaison.
• Work closely with community mental health teams (CMHTs) to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach (CPA) for all service users where necessary.
• To provide comprehensive and timely reports and mental health expertise to multi agency public protection panels (MAPPA), police, probation services, solicitors and court liaison teams as directed.
• Deliver active clinical leadership and supervision within the team, covering for the manager and colleagues as required. To receive supervision as directed (line management and clinical).
• To participate in resource centre services as directed, delivering psychological therapy and specialist activities under the direction of the clinical lead.
• To work in a psychologically minded way with service users in achieving their agreed goals and quality health outcomes.
• Close working relationships with all prison staff, to include participation in sentence planning, resettlement, safer custody, and the ACCT processes.
• To develop and take on a specialist lead role as appropriate and provide peer support and training in this area.
• To contribute towards support, advice,…