Senior Mental Health Practitioner; CAMHS

Go back Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

The closing date is 31 January 2026

Do you want to make a difference to the mental health of children and young people and shape early intervention services?

Gloucestershire Health and Care Trust has four established Young Minds Matter Mental Health Support Teams to work with schools. The aim of the team is to enable earlier and more effective mental health support for children, young people, their families and carers and increase resilience within school communities in managing mental health issues.

We are now expanding our successful team and seeking to recruit enthusiastic and committed mental health clinicians who enjoy working within multi agency settings to join the Mental Health Support Teams (MHST's).

The teams comprise of:

• Qualified CAMHS clinicians, Senior Mental Health Practitioners (SMHP - band
  6)
• Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP - Band 4 /
  5)
• Partner agencies aiming to work within a THRIVE model (including Talk Well and Early Help)
• School Mental Health Leads and wider school teams

Band 6 clinicians as Senior Mental Health Practitioners (SMHP) are a vital part of the service. We are seeking people who are flexible, adaptable to change and able to develop service delivery over time and in response to feedback.

It is a community-based post and therefore a valid UK driving licence plus the use of own transport for business purposes is essential.

The service welcomes those clinicians who may be currently working within other children's or adult mental health settings who have the necessary transferable clinical skills and experience.

Key elements of the role are:

• Work in partnership with schools to deliver consultation, assessment of children/young people and a range of mental health interventions within school settings. This will involve direct work with children/young people as well as offering specialist consultation, signposting and advice to professional networks, including teaching staff
• To provide support to other clinical colleagues
• Be responsible and ensure the effective care co-ordination, support and advice around clinical care provided within schools, especially including consideration of safeguarding and clinical risk issues
• Consult with teachers, school staff and mental health leads in schools to identify children and young people with emerging mental health needs, as part of a whole school approach. This may include supporting the EMHP's in delivering parenting support, group work, work with parents and psychoeducation within a school setting

Our service is very proud of the positive impact we make on the children and young people we work with and the encouraging feedback we receive as a service from school staff alongside children and families. We have a strong multi-disciplinary ethos in our clinical delivery and have robust clinical supervision structures.

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust. Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us.

In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that: 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question. 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.

81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%. This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff…