Clinical social worker

The role will involve offering mental health assessments and interventions to young people presenting with moderate to severe needs. You will need to liaise with Childrens' Services and other external agencies, as well as working closely with the family and or carers of the young people.


We can offer you a competitive salary, staff benefits package and excellent career development and training that comes from working for Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust .


Main duties of the job
To offer robust mental health assessments and interventions to children, young people and their families who are presenting with moderate to severe mental health needs.

To achieve and maintain good working relationships with colleagues in other teams, and colleagues in other disciplines and agencies, especially regarding areas of joint working.

To offer duty as part of a rota.

To play a role in the development of the team having particular regard to the need for workload control and the establishment of priorities.

To ensure that work being undertaken by Social Work Staff displays a
professional approach and is in line with statutory duties and departmental policy.

Working for our organisation
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is an outstanding organisation with ambitions to match. We are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from the Care Quality Commission, and our aim is to be the leading provider of mental health and specialist learning disability services in the country.

Our family of over 3500 members of staff provide health and social care for over 400,000 people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. We also deliver a range of nationally commissioned specialist services including Tier 4 services for children and young people, perinatal services, plus medium and low secure learning disabilities services.

The care we provide makes a fantastic difference to the lives of our service users, their families and carers - everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout:

Our Trust values are:

Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.

These values are at the core of who we are, everything we do, and how we do it!

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
 To manage a defined caseload, providing consultation and packages of
intervention to children, adolescents and their carers.
 To maintain up to date knowledge of relevant legislation
safeguarding policies and procedures particularly in relation to children
looked after and children of the edge of care
 To assess, plan, implement and evaluate treatment plans for all clients on the caseload, using an evidence based approach
 To advocate the rights of young person, carers and families as detailed in current legislation

To participate in the assessment and treatment of children and
adolescents presenting with deliberate self-harm
 To communicate complex and sensitive information to referrers and other involved professionals, both verbally and in writing
 Provide and seek consultation to/from professionals within the multidisciplinary CAMHS team
 Prepare and present reports for a variety of meetings
 To maintain knowledge of available resources, and of the roles of other
agencies and to liaise on behalf of service users
 To maintain up to date clinical and theoretical knowledge pertaining to
child and adolescent mental health
 To ensure that accurate computer records of all work undertaken are kept up to date
 To undertake post qualifying and other appropriate training to ensure high standards of practice and continuation of registration with SWE
 To offer training to other professionals both within & outside the Team
 To participate in regular supervision
 To contribute to multi-disciplinary working and, as part of that, to be an
excellent advocate for social care
 To adhere to Trust policies and procedures
 To carry out any other duties identified by your line manage

Person specification
QUALIFICATIONS/EDUCATION/TRAINING
Essential criteria

Social Work degree or recognised earlier equivalent qualification to practice such as CQSW, Dip S.W
Registration with Social Work England
Relevant PQ training for Social Workers
Desirable criteria

Further training/qualification in relevant area of practice. E.g. Family Therapy, Child Psychotherapy; CBT, Group Therapy; Counselling; Play Therapy
Master’s degree level or equivalent
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
Essential criteria

Post qualified experience all of which must be either in the field of child and family social work or related child care setting or in Mental Health Social Work with some experience of work with children who are Looked After
Substantial knowledge of Child & Adolescent development
Knowledge of current legislation and guidance relevant to the post
Desirable criteria

Experience of teaching, training and clinical supervision
Substantial knowledge of Child and Adolescent mental health
Good knowledge of the principles and values of CYP/IAPT and a commitment to this model of working
About us
Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is rated by the Care Quality Commission as an Outstanding provider of mental health and learning disability services. In 2021, we won the prestigious Health Service Journal award for Mental Health Trust of the Year, with the judges saying they were “blown away” by our people’s achievements and that everything they saw “sings and hums”. This year, our staff rated us the 4th best mental health and learning disability trust to work for out of all 52 trusts in the country. Our staff tell us that they are proud to be part of the HPFT team, proud of the standard of care we provide and proud that service users are our top priority. Our people tell us they feel supported though a great development, wellbeing and work-life balance offer and a highly compassionate, values-driven culture. We are equally proud of our staff, who live our values of being welcoming, kind, positive, respectful and professional so that together we provide great care and great outcomes for our service users and carers.

If you would like to join a team to be proud of and you share our values and passion for great care and outcomes for our service users and carers, we would love to hear from you.

Additional Information
HPFT is committed to being an equal opportunities employer and in order to reflect the diversity of its population, positively encourages applications from all areas of the community. We aim to be a representative organisation with regards to age, disability, ethnicity, gender, beliefs and sexual orientation and are fully committed to equality, diversity and human rights and encourage applications from all sections of the community including users of mental health services.

The Trust is committed to helping staff balance work and home life and welcomes applications from candidates wishing to work part-time or under flexible working arrangements.

Infection Control

All our staff will need to comply with current Infection Prevention and Control measures which could include wearing a mask on all our Trust sites and in all roles