MHST Social Worker - Selby

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Selby Wellbeing in Mind Team as our very first Social Worker, helping shape how social work practice becomes embedded within our mental health in education model.

Our Wellbeing in Mind Teams work directly into schools and colleges, delivering early identification, evidence-based support and whole-school approaches to mental wellbeing. As the first post of its kind, this role offers real scope to carve out your professional identity within the team, influence how social work contributes to school-based mental health support and help shape how young people and families experience care within their education setting. You will work as part of a vibrant, creative team who are passionate about getting mental health support to the right young people at the right time, in the right place.

You must have the Right to Work in the UK in order to be successfully appointed to this role.Please note, this role does not meet the required eligibility criteria for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa and therefore the Trust is unable to offer sponsorship for this particular role.

Main duties of the job

As a core member of the Wellbeing in Mind Team, you will deliver all three Mental Health Support Team functions, contributing to early intervention and whole-system change across partner schools and colleges. This includes providing specialist social work assessment and support for young people with emerging or moderate mental health needs, delivering evidence-based interventions, and promoting strong relationships with families.

You will also work closely with education staff to strengthen safeguarding responses, enhance understanding of social care pathways, and support the design of school-level systems that reduce risk and promote wellbeing. The role involves offering consultation, delivering training within education settings, and contributing to multi-agency planning around children and young people with complex social and emotional needs.

While working independently across different school environments, you will remain fully integrated into the wider CAMHS and WiMT structure, contributing to collaborative planning, reflective discussions and MDT decision-making.

About us

We are the Mental Health & Learning Disability NHS Trust for County Durham and Darlington, Teesside, North Yorkshire, York and Selby.

From education and prevention, to crisis and specialist care --our talented and compassionate teams work in partnership with our patients, communities and partners to help the people of our region feel safe, understood, believed in and cared for.

We nurture the recovery journey of anyone in need of our help. In Our Trust, everyone has a say in how they are supported and treated because we listen to every person in our care until they feel understood. Our patients, their families and carers work together with us towards better mental health.

We're committed to new thinking that improves the wellbeing of our region. We connect with our communities and partners to get mental health care right, in areas that really need it.

Job description

Job responsibilities

In this role, you will provide high quality, evidence informed social work practice within an early intervention mental health in education model. You will autonomously manage a caseload, carrying out assessments, developing care plans collaboratively with young people and families, and delivering interventions that promote safety, resilience and improved social and emotional wellbeing. You will uphold the highest standards of safeguarding, ensuring risk is identified, managed and communicated effectively across agencies. Working across several school settings, you will build strong relationships with pastoral staff, SENCOs, designated safeguarding leads and wider education teams, offering advice, reflective consultation and support to improve outcomes for children and young people. You will contribute to data collection, service development, audit and quality improvement work within the team, and play a key role in promoting the values and principles of social care within a multidisciplinary environment. Throughout, you will model the Trusts values of respect, compassion and responsibility, ensuring that every young person and family you support is met with dignity, curiosity and hope.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential
-Appropriate professional qualification in social work role
-Current relevant registration with specific regulatory body

Desirable
-Post graduate training in relevant specialist area

Knowledge

Essential
-Understanding of the needs of service users with mental health conditions or learning disabilities.
-Collaborating with service users and carers and their families in accordance with the principals of coproduction
-Support other to manage their caseload and prioritise effectively within a supervisor or educational relationship

Skills

Essential
-Effectively manage complex clinical and social issues
-Motivate and work positively and constructively with other members of the team.
-Apply latest research evidence and evaluative thinking in practice
-Provide effective teaching, training and clinical supervision
-Committed to promoting a positive image of the Department, profession, service and the wider Trust. and Awareness of the needs of individuals from diverse social, ethnic and cultural backgrounds
-Ability to work on own in a variety of settings using initiative appropriately

Experience

Essential
-Minimum 12 months post qualifying experience of social work delivery /completion of AYSE for social work (post 2012) pre 2012 evidence of experience in accordance with professional capabilities framework for an experienced social worker

Desirable
-Experience of supporting people with mental health issues, learning disability or autism
-Experience of working in Multidisciplinary Team (SW essential criteria)