Perinatal Mental Health Practitioner

We are looking for two enthusiastic practitioners to join the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service.

You will be working within a specialist service that is committed to improving mental health care for women and families. You will be expected to fulfil the role of care co-ordinator as well as completing initial assessments. We utilise a flexible approach to the delivery of clinical care to best suit the need of mother and infant.

We are looking to recruit practitioners from a variety of backgrounds including Registered Mental Health Nurses (RMN) and/or Social Work.

Specialist training opportunities will be available as part of this role.

You will have a minimum of two years post registration experience. You will need to be able to travel across a large geographical area.

We offer full and part time working hours within 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday.

The post holder will be part of a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to the effective provision of Perinatal Mental and Infant Mental Health Services to an identified caseload of women. The core purpose of the team in which the post-holder will work, is to deliver high quality, tailored interventions in maternal mental health and attachment based Approaches to mothers and infants. The service will have a key role in raising the profile and standards of mental health care for expectant and newly delivered mothers across universal and specialist services.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Clinical

Contribute to the team’s engagement with a wide range of stakeholders including staff, women and their families, their careers and other statutory and voluntary sector agencies.

Liaise with a wide range of other professionals and

Contribute to the safe and effective day to day operations of the service including the handling of clinical

Present information some of which may be contentious to women and their families/carers.

Ensure equality of access to services for all women paying particular attention to diversity issues and women from hard to reach

Attend management and professional meetings as directed by their line manager and professional

Responsible for planning and co-ordinating own day to day work load in collaboration with the needs of women and their families and the wider needs of the service.

Plan and organise case conferences, liaising with other agencies as required to meet the needs of women and their

Ensure that interventions are planned in an integrated and co-ordinated manner particularly where dependent on other external

Maintain a caseload of appropriate

Responsible for developing care packages including assessing, planning, intervention and evaluation. Ensuring active involvement of women and their families

Triage referrals by assessing and advising on eligibility

Provide specialist advice to referrers/other multi-disciplinary staff in relation to the care of the client.

Participate in all aspects of safeguarding including safeguarding children to level 3 as set out in safeguarding children and young people: roles and competencies for Health Care staff.

Participate in the development of a programme of education for other professional groups working in perinatal/maternity services

Participate in programmes of audit and research within the team and implement the findings.

Contribute to professional clinical governance arrangements in order to ensure the quality of the service provided.

Participate in the development of Mental Health; responsible for care of own equipment

Where appropriate handles or processes cash or patients valuables

Provide clinical supervision for a number of qualified

Periodically co-ordinate the activity of the team and facilitate handover meetings.

Mentor students allocated to the

Maintain up to date client records in a timely and accurate

Ensure that statutory training associated with the post is

Participate in own clinical supervision and PDR.

Management and Personal Development

Communicate information in a way that makes it relevant and understandable for women and their families, working to the principles of the functions policy implementation guidelines and practice in line with the standards and values set out in them.

Contribute to the development of standards for the perinatal mental health service

Aim to uphold the principles and approach of CPA, whether people are formally in CPA or

Work co-operatively with staff colleagues including accepting staff recent assessment of the client, if the client is transferred to them, in order to minimise the disruption to the client.

Ensure a duty of care to your patients and clients, who are entitled to receive safe and competent care. The woman’s wishes, feelings, values and beliefs should be taken into consideration as well as the views of the people close to

Take personal accountability for your own practice. This means that you are answerable for your actions and omissions, regardless of advice or directions from another professional.

Ensure that you remain professionally competent by participating in your own and others clinical supervision.

Please refer to attached Job Description for full list of duties.