MHST Senior Practitioner/SupervisorNHS

Job summary

Please be advised, this vacancy will have an office base in Watford, however you will be required to travel across the South Area (Three Rivers, Watford and Hertsmere).

As part of Hertfordshire CYPMHS transformation, our priority is simple: to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people.

Driven by this goal and in line with NHS long term plans, we have an excitingopportunity for a supervisor to work at the forefront of innovation in Children's and Young Peoples Mental Health and to play an instrumental role in a forward-thinking service delivering interventions into schools and other settings in Hertfordshire.

We are seeking a flexible, motivated, enthusiastic and experienced practitioner with the genuine passion and skills to support both children and young people, parent/carers and the wider workforce. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced practitioner looking to develop their leadership and supervisory skills and as such duties will include elements of operational management in support of the Team Leader.

Main duties of the job

You will play a key role in a creative environment where evidence-based practice, fresh ideas, and new ways of working are embraced to improve outcomes for children and young people.

In this role, you will lead and coordinate the delivery of evidence-based interventions across Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) within schools and colleges. You will also provide supervision, guidance, and operational support to ensure safe, effective, and high-quality service delivery. You will inspire, empower, and support your colleagues, helping to foster a positive team culture and drive high standards of care that make a difference to young lives.

Supervisors will play a key role in:

• Forming strong working relations with a variety of stakeholders
• Providing consultations to education colleagues and support education settings to embed a whole school approach to wellbeing
• Developing and delivering evidence-based time limited interventions to young people within education settings
• Evidencing the outcomes of the MHST service
• Providing clinical supervision to Mental Health practitioners.

Job description

You will be expected to work in schools closely with school staff to support children and young people, their families and staff to foster a whole school approach to mental well-being.

The role requires a commitment to travel within the MHST South area (Hertsmere, Three Rivers and Watford).

The successful candidate will have:

• Core postgraduate qualification in the provision of low intensity CBT, e.g.,
• Postgraduate Diploma Educational Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP programme)
• Or Postgraduate Certificate/Diploma in Child and Young Persons Psychological Wellbeing Practice (CWP)
• Or an accredited CBT qualification
• Significant post-qualification clinical experience.
• Experience of, or a willingness to undertake a Psychological Therapies or CYP IAPT postgraduate supervision qualification.

*Please note if you do not have a supervision qualification, you will be expected to undertake a 1-year postgraduate certificate supervision training.

*Supervision training will be provided by UEA, Norwich with a course start date of 19th January 2027. Most teaching days will fall on a Thursday. The successful candidate will be expected to start their induction with the MHST service on 4th January 2027.

Follow the link below for further details:

PG Certificate Postgraduate Certificate in Supervision of Low Intensity CBT with Children and Young People 2026/27 | UEA

• Proven experience delivering evidence-based CBT interventions for mild to moderate mental health difficulties, including anxiety, low mood and behavioural challenges, both on an individual basis and within group settings.
• The ability to provide effective clinical support, supervision, and leadership to colleagues, promoting high-quality, evidence-based care across Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs).

About us

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 theCare 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!