Mental Health Practitioner

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 28,000 - 34,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading NHS healthcare provider is seeking a part-time Mental Health Practitioner to deliver specialist mental healthcare to offenders within the Mental Health In-Reach Team. You will manage a complex caseload, conduct assessments, and work collaboratively with other teams to ensure continuity of care. The ideal candidate should have relevant qualifications in mental health and experience in engaging with offenders to achieve health outcomes. This role demands a high level of professional engagement and psychological insight.

Qualifications

• Experience in providing mental healthcare to offenders.
• Strong understanding of psychological interventions.
• Ability to manage a challenging caseload.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist mental healthcare to offenders.
• Work as part of the Mental Health In-Reach Team.
• Conduct referral management, triage, and assessments.
• Integrate and collaborate with other services.

Skills

Mental health assessment

Care planning

Risk assessment

CBT training

Collaboration with teams

Education

Relevant qualification in mental health

Five years of address history

Job description

This is a part time role, 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 assist 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 of sponsorship for this post.

One of our key aims is to ensure continuity of care for an offender on ordinary location and reduce the length of stay, both in relation to prison inpatient services and external NHS/independent in‑patient services. You will work closely with community mental health teams to ensure appropriate sharing of information, continuity of care and the Care Programme Approach for all offenders as necessary.

To provide specialist mental healthcare to service users and to work as part of the Mental Health In‑ Team and wider MDT.

Key responsibilities

• Referral management, screening assessment, triage and evidence‑based interventions
• Care planning and risk assessment
• One‑to‑one and group‑work facilitation
• Managing a mixed and challenging caseload
• Robust assessment, screening and interventions to service users with mental health, neuro‑developmental and trauma needs
• Ensuring timely delivery of waiting time, assessment and interventions to meet performance targets
• Integrated and collaborative working with other specialist services, continuity of care and liaison through gate arrangements
• Providing 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
• Delivering active clinical leadership and supervision within the team, covering for the manager and colleagues as required
• Participating in resource centre services as directed, delivering psychological therapy and specialist activities under the direction of the clinical lead
• Working in a psychologically minded way with service users to achieve their agreed goals and quality health outcomes
• Maintaining close working relationships with all prison staff, including participation in sentence planning, resettlement, safer custody and the ACCT processes
• Developing and taking on a specialist lead role as appropriate and providing peer support and training in this area
• Contributing towards support, advice, consultation and training for prison staff
• Undertaking training to maximise uptake of screening, health promotion and prevention activity, including vaccinations
• Holding a caseload and coordinating services with secondary mental health and complex needs using a stepped‑care approach
• Ensuring a single, integrated care plan is devolved in collaboration with service users, facilitating comprehensive risk assessment, crisis plans, rapid access plans and advance statements involving other agencies such as primary care where appropriate
• Attending or contributing to weekly MDT meetings for service users on secondary caseload and complex care needs, ensuring a tailored individual needs approach
• Performing evidence‑based CBT training to enhance consistency and quality of care delivery
• Supporting patients to manage all areas of their health at every stage, from oral health to long‑term conditions
• Embedding health promotion into every aspect of the service

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 Swaleside Cat B Population = 1,112
HMP Elmley Cat B/C Population = 1,252
HMP Standford Hill Cat D Population = 450
HMP Maidstone - Cat C - Population = 600
HMP Rochester - Cat C - Population = 695
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

Were Kind
Were Fair
We Listen
We Care

Important Please Read

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre‑employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

You Will Need To Provide

• Proof of right to work documentation
• Proof of ID, needs to include one photographic ID
• Proof of address documentation
• Non‑UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code

Address History

• 5 years address history will be needed.
• Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.
• Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries they resided in or visited.

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website ( http://www.fco.gov.uk/en ).

LNKD1_UKTJ