Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Senior Occupational Therapist MHST
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Job Overview
This is a role within the Green Paper for Transforming children and young people’s mental health. We are seeking a Band 6 Senior Occupational Therapist to join our diverse Harrow Mental Health Support Team (MHST), based within CNWL Early Intervention CAMHS. The post holder will work across Harrow schools, supporting children and young people with mild to moderate mental health needs, including anxiety, low mood, behavioural difficulties, and occupational performance or participation needs.
This role will involve delivering evidence-based, short-term occupational therapy interventions, supporting whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing, and working closely with our key stakeholders which include children, young people, families, schools, and multi-disciplinary colleagues. The post holder will also contribute to the development of the OT pathway within Harrow MHST in line with CYP-IAPT principles.
Main Duties of the Job
The post holder will provide occupational therapy assessment, intervention, consultation and signposting for children and young people within Harrow schools. This will include individual and group work, psychoeducation, promoting healthy routines, supporting emotional regulation, improving participation in education, self-care and leisure, and helping young people develop coping and self-management skills.
The role will also involve working in partnership with schools, parents/carers and other professionals to develop strengths-based care plans with clear goals. The post holder will support whole school approaches to wellbeing, provide training, workshops and consultation to education staff, complete risk assessments, maintain accurate records and outcome measures, and contribute to supervision to junior colleagues and other team members.
Working for our Organisation
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest and most diverse community and mental health Trusts in the country. CNWL provides a wide range of services across London and the South East and works with diverse communities where over 100 first languages are spoken.
Harrow MHST provides early intervention mental health support for children and young people, their families and carers. The service works collaboratively with schools to improve access to mental health support, provide timely advice, and help children and young people remain engaged in education. CNWL’s values are Compassion, Respect, Empowerment and Partnership, and the Trust offers a range of development, learning and staff network opportunities.
Detailed Job Description and Main Responsibilities
The Senior Occupational Therapist will care for a caseload of children and young people with mild to moderate mental health difficulties and identified occupational performance or participation needs. They will use specialist OT skills to assess, plan, implement and review brief interventions, ensuring these are evidence-based, culturally appropriate and centred on the young person’s goals.
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Key responsibilities include delivering individual and group OT interventions; supporting children and young people with routines, coping skills, emotional wellbeing, social participation and engagement in education; offering consultation and advice to schools; supporting whole school approaches to mental health; developing and evaluating group work; evidencing outcomes of OT intervention; and contributing to the ongoing development of the MHST OT pathway.
The post holder will work as part of the wider MHST senior team, contribute to supervision and service development, show awareness and implementation of CYP-IAPT and CBT-informed principles, support safeguarding processes where needed, maintain high standards of clinical documentation, complete routine outcome measures, and uphold professional standards in line with HCPC, RCOT and CNWL policies.
Person Specification
Education And Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Relevant Professional Qualification in Occupational Therapy
- Additional qualifications and training in Child and Adolescent mental health
- Registered with the HCPC and BAOT
Desirable criteria
- Formal CBT training
- Accredited courses/workshops in CYP-IAPT principles
Previous Experience and Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Substantial consolidated experience working as an occupational therapist in paediatrics or mental health.
- Experience of delivering evidenced-based occupational therapy interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues such as anxiety, low mood and behavioural problems
- Experience running therapy groups and/or training events
- Experience either working as a member of a multidisciplinary team or multi-agency working.
- Good understanding of the range of child and adolescent mental health services
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and adolescents and safeguarding procedures and policies
Desirable criteria
- Substantial consolidated experience working in child and adolescent mental health.
- Knowledge and experience in mental health promotion work.
- Experience of delivering evidenced-based occupational therapy interventions for mental health issues to CYP both individually, to parent(s)/carer(s) and in groups.
- Experience of delivering evidenced-based CBT informed interventions to CYP and their families for mild to moderate mental health issues such as anxiety, low mood
- Experience of working with schools to support CYP emotional well-being needs
Communication and Administrative Skills /Competencies
Essential criteria
- Excellent oral/written communication
- Able to communicate effectively with the team, through face to face, video call, telephone and email communication. This includes discussing case work, taking note of actions, updating others in the team and use team meetings effectively.
- Maintaining accurate, timely, concise and legible clinical records both electronic and handwritten which adhere to the CNWL policies
- Able to talk to people about sensitive issues in a supportive manner but also challenge others assertively where necessary
- Excellent communication, assessment, planning and recording skills.
- Ability to deliver interventions which address the assessed needs.
- Ability to work co-operatively with other disciplines.
- Knowledge of risk management and ability to monitor and assess risk and act accordingly to ensure safety.
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IT Skills
Essential criteria
- Able to maintain electronic patient records
- Use Microsoft products including Word for letter and report writing, PowerPoint for presentations and workshop delivery and Excel for service monitoring and evaluation.
Desirable criteria
- Ability to use IT systems for evaluation of interventions and practice for service improvement.
Clinical Skills and Competencies
Essential criteria
- Ability to carry out 1:1 therapeutic mental health interventions with children and young people/families
- Ability to carry out group work and deliver workshops
- Ability to deliver training sessions
- Ability to conduct mental health assessments of children and young people
- Ability to make an assessment of risk and to record and communicate it appropriately.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of conducting group parenting programmes.
- Experience of providing mental health consultation and signposting to education staff and other professionals.
- Experience delivering trainings and psycho-educational workshops about mental health issues
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Understanding how the Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards impacts on their work and the people they are working with
- Understanding how the Mental Health Act impacts on their work and the people they are working with
- Understanding the concept of quality and their role in improving safety, clinical outcomes and the patient experience
- Knowledge of educational environments
- Knowledge of children and young people safeguarding legislation, policies and procedures
- Knowledge of capacity and consent issues including Gillick competence
- Knowledge and Commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion by delivering culturally responsive and accessible care to children, young people, families, schools and colleagues
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the functional operation of specialist CAMHS teams
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