MHST Specialist Practitioner/ Team Lead | South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust


Company:	South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Salary:	£55,524 - £62,652 per annum inclusive HCAs (Outer)
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Croydon, CR0 1QG
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	23 Sept 2026
Closing date:	23 Oct 2026

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Summary

The Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) is an early intervention programme funded by NHS England with the aim of improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in the community in response to the government’s Green Paper for Young People’s Mental Health.

The practitioner in this role will focus on providing day to day clinical oversight and support for the Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs), alongside senior leadership.

· The role will ensure the efficient and effective delivery of the MHST, providing high quality, safe and responsive specialist mental health services to children, young people, parents/carers and professionals provided in accordance with Children and Young People’s mental health training principles, in partnership with service users and partner agencies, working as part of a multi-agency system.

The post holder may have supervisory responsibility/co-responsibility for EMHP clinicians within the MHST and will also work as part of a senior’s team, supporting the Team Leaders and Clinical Service Leads with the new pathway.

The post is currently being recruited to within the existing service structure. The service may be subject to a future procurement process, and any subsequent changes will be managed in accordance with NHS employment policies and relevant legislation.

As the MHST Specialist Practitioner/ Team Lead, you are responsible for leading a small team of Education mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) and CAMHS practitioners as well as playing an important role in managing the delivery of the three functions of the MHST:

· Delivering evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues

· Supporting the senior mental health lead in each education setting to introduce or develop their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing

· Giving timely advice to school and college staff, and liaising with external specialist services to help children and young people get the right support and stay in education.

Croydon MHST is a friendly and supportive team who have developed a close partnership with local schools in providing low

intensity interventions, creating workshops and groups and adapting services to meet the needs of schools, young people and families in

Croydon in line with CYP-IAPT principles.

Key Responsibilities:

Clinical and Client Care

• Enhance accessibility to mental health services for children and young people in Croydon schools.

• To provide specialist psychosocial assessments, formulations and interventions for clients in the MHST team.

• Support and empower children, young people and families to make informed choices about the intervention.

• To support children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their families in the self-management of presenting difficulties.

• To work in partnership with families to provide culturally appropriate psychological interventions with carers or families of referred clients when required.

• To assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.

• To act as care co-ordinator sharing responsibility for the oversight of cases within the MHST that require step up to Specialist CAMHS.

• Provide support for EWP’s and others in using CYP IAPT compliant routine outcome measures.

• Ensure clear objectives are identified, discussed and reviewed with EWP’s on a regular basis as part of their continuing professional development.

• To develop and help deliver workshops, groups for children and young people in schools.

• To provide consultation and where appropriate training to other professionals in schools who come into contact with children, young people and their families/carers referred with moderate, complex and severe mental health problems

Contributing to team or service clinical functioning

• To contribute to the effective working of the team or service and to a psychologically informed framework for the service.

• To contribute to the team or service’s delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

• To be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.

• To advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients.

• To liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients in order to develop and review care plans.

• To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

• To work in partnership with schools and colleges to develop and deliver activities related to their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.

• Contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.

Policy and service development

• To implement policies and procedures in own area of work, and to propose improvements or beneficial changes.

• To contribute to service development through undertaking and participating in appropriate projects related to the MHST Team.

• To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.

Care or management of resources

• To take care of, and use carefully, the Trust’s equipment and physical resources.

• To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed.

Management and supervision

• To support the (trainee) EWP’s in the assessment and formulation of cases suitable for the Guided Self Help interventions.

• To provide clinical supervision to EWPs and/or Band 6 CAMHS practitioners working within school settings.

• To contribute to the recruitment of EWPs and training.

• Attend MHST senior management meetings and contribute to service development.

• Manage relationships with stakeholders, including school senior mental health leads and head teachers.

• Management and oversight of the team’s clinical casework, including referrals and allocation.

• Management and oversight of the team’s whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing.

Teaching and Training

• To undertake teaching and training within the MHST.

• To develop and deliver training for schools, universal and targeted services.

• To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the MHST service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments and by implementing knowledge gained in training to practice.

• To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.

Record-keeping and Information Governance

• To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry.

Research and development

• To initiate, undertake, support and supervise regular complex service evaluation and audits

• To initiate and carry out appropriate research where appropriate.

• To initiate and implement the development of outcome measurement and assessment and assist other staff in the implementation of same.

Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development

• To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior clinician according to Professional and Trust guidelines.

• To ensure own Continuing Professional Development in line with professional and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and professional ‘Standards for Continuing Professional Development’.

• To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies.

• To comply with the trust and professional ‘Standards of Conduct,

Performance and Ethics’ and ‘Standards of Proficiency’, and ensure professional development in line with these.

• To adhere to Professional Practice Guidelines and Trust policies and procedures.

General

• To travel to as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

• To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow trust policies relating to its management.

• To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations and to support others involved in such situations.

This advert closes on Wednesday 7 Oct 2026

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