South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust

Trainee Educational Mental Health Practitioner

The closing date is 30 December 2025

Job summary

Please be aware that the training element of this post commences in January 2026. Please do not apply if you are unable to commence training on this date.

Our Future in Mind MHST (Mental Health Support Team) is a growing and developing service which provides early intervention to improve the lives of children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health problems.

We are looking to recruit a Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioners (Trainee EMHP) to join our friendly and supportive team starting in January 2026. Successful candidates will be employed within Wakefield CAMHS, on a NHS Band 4 one-year training contract and on successful completion of the training will transfer to a NHS Band 5 EMHP permanent contract. The role will be based within education settings in Wakefield and the first-year part time study will be at Sheffield University.

All applicants must hold a level 6 qualification and have experience of working with children and young people, an understanding of the educational system is desirable.

The interview process will include a service interview, a university interview and submission of a CV and 600-word assignment.

All employees of the Trust are strongly encouraged to have their up-to-date flu vaccination to protect staff and patients.

Main duties of the job

Responsibilities of the Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioner include:

Completing Sheffield Universitys one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP).

Delivering and recording accurate assessments including risk assessments.

Delivering evidenced based interventions to children, young people, parents/carers through individual and group work.

Delivering psychoeducation sessions to children, young people, parents/carers through assemblies, classroom, and parent sessions.

Ensuring children/young people play an active part in decision making about the support they need.

Providing advice/consultation to education staff to support children/young people getting the right help at the right time.

Supporting education settings in developing and embedding whole school approaches to mental health through collaboration and coproduction with the school community.

Participating in the delivery of training programmes for education settings and community services.

At the time of advertising, this role does not meet the minimum requirements set by UK Visas and Immigration to sponsor candidates to work in the UK. For this reason, we are unable to sponsor anyone for a skilled worker visa for this role.

We are happy to accept applications from candidates who can prove their right to work in the UK or via alternative visa routes. Such applications will be considered alongside all other applications.

About us

We are a specialist NHS Foundation Trust that provides community, mental health and learning disability services for the people of Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield. We also provide low and medium secure services and are the lead for the west Yorkshire secure provider collaborative.

Our mission is to help people reach their potential and live well in their communities, we do this by providing high-quality care in the right place at the right time. We employ staff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make a difference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourage and welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, we value diversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

Being a foundation Trust means were accountable to our members, who can have a say in how were run. Around 14,300 local people (including staff) are members of our Trust.

Join us and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improving the mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet and help each year.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all colleagues and volunteers to share this commitment.

We do reserve to right to close vacancy before the advertised closing date if necessary, so please apply as soon as possible.

Date posted

23 December 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9378-W1411

Job locations

Fieldhead Hospital

Ouchthorpe Lane

Wakefield

WF1 3SP

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Summary:

In line with the governments priority to increase access and availability of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people, the Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) role is an exciting opportunity to deliver evidence-based early interventions for children and young people, working across both educational settings and healthcare sectors in England.

Successful candidates will be employed full-time and based in Kirklees Mental Health Support Team, which will be responsible for the delivery of mental health support across a range of educational settings in the region. For part of this role there will be a requirement to travel to Sheffield Trust and affiliated with the University of Sheffield?? for the teaching element of the training.

This post will be funded at NHS T&Cs 2021 Band 4 scale, in pay band 4 bottom scale( gaining credits towards either a degree or diploma level qualification (depending on level of previous academic study), plus guaranteed employment on completion of training, with a starting salary projected to be based on the NHS T&Cs 2021 Band 5 scale.

To enable this, all applicants must demonstrate in their application the ability to work at degree level or have an equivalent level of relevant experience, with a proven record of previous learning or formal study in child development, wellbeing or mental health. Further to that experience of working with children and young people and an understanding of the educational system in England is highly desirable.

The training programme for this post starts in February 2021, is 12 months in duration and will consist of academic and supervised practice learning across mental health services and educational settings, such as primary and secondary schools, and further education colleges.

Delivery of the programme will be provided through a combination of taught days at Sheffield, independent self-guided study days and experience gained in education wellbeing and mainstream mental health services.

During training, the post-holder will work under close supervision to gain experience across healthcare and educational settings to enable them to gain the level of competence required to deliver high-quality, evidence-based early interventions for children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health problems.

Job Purpose:

For the duration of the training year, EMHPs will attend both Higher Education Institution (HEI) in addition to working in services (and educational settings linked to that service) for the remaining days each week.

On successful completion of training, trainee EMHPs will be equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and capabilities to work as a qualified EMHP within the Mental Health Support Team.

Under supervision develop knowledge and practice skills in:-

Delivering evidence-based interventions for children and young people, with mild to moderate mental health problems, in education settings.

Helping children and young people within these settings who present with more severe problems to rapidly access more specialist services.

Supporting and facilitating staff in education settings to identify, and where appropriate, manage issues related to mental health and wellbeing.

Working with and within educational environments to afford better access to specialist mental health services.

To evidence development of those skills with associated knowledge acquisition to record and evidence progression towards an academic award and demonstrable practical ability.

Key Responsibilities:

Clinical

Be educationally supervised, supported and assessed whilst delivering outcome focused, evidence-based interventions in educational settings for children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties.

Developing skills in supporting children and young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties, their parents/carers, families and educators in the self-management of presenting difficulties.

Developing and practicing evidence-based skills under supervisory support of working in partnership with children, young people, their families and educators in the development of plans for the specific intervention and agreeing outcomes.

Developing and learning the skills required in order to enable children and young people in education, and where appropriate parents/carers to collaborate and determine an agreed plan of care.

Show evidence in a variety of forms that assessment and intervention is provided from an inclusive values base, which recognizes and respects diversity.

Discuss with supervisors and agree to accept appropriate referrals for children and young people in educational settings, according to agreed local and national referral routes, processes and procedures.

Under supervision, undertake accurate assessments of risk to self and others.

Learn, understand, rationalize and adhere to the protocols within the educational service to which the post holder is attached.

Engage along with more senior staff in the signposting of referrals for children and young people with more complex needs to the relevant service.

Engage in robust managerial and clinical supervision, identifying the scope of practice of the individual postholder within the role, and working safely within that scope.

Gain and practice a range of interventions related to provision of information and support for evidence based psychological treatments.

Practice, evidence, reflect on and demonstrate an ability to manage ones own caseload in conjunction with the requirements of the team.

Attend multi-disciplinary and multi-agency meetings relating to referrals or children and young people in treatment, where appropriate, both for personal educational benefit in discussion with supervisors, or to provide direct assistance.

Keep coherent records of all training and clinical activity in line with both health and education service protocols and use these records and outcome data to inform decision making.

Complete all requirements relating to data collection.

Show evidence of working within a collaborative approach, involving a range of relevant others when indicated. Specifically, work in collaboration with teachers and other educational staff, parents, children, young people and the wider community to enhance and broaden access to mental health services.

Contribute to the development of individual or group clinical materials or training materials and go on to develop further such materials as falls within own degree of competence.

Training & Supervision

Attend and fulfil all the requirements of the training element of the post including practical, academic and practice-based assessments.

As well as attendance at the University for training, fulfil private study requirements to enhance learning and prepare assignments for examination, for at least one day a week.

Apply learning from the training program directly to practice through the course.

Receive practice tutoring from educational providers in relation to course work to meet the required standards.

Prepare and present caseload information to supervisors within the service on an agreed and scheduled basis, to ensure safe practice and the governance obligations of the trainee, supervisor and service are delivered.

Respond to and evidence the implementation of improved practice because of supervisor feedback.

Engage in and respond to personal development supervision to improve competencies and practice.

Be involved in the evaluation of the course.

Disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and supervisory discussions.

For full job description, please see attached supporting documents.

We are aware that an increasing number of applicants are using AI technology to generate responses on NHS Job application forms.Over reliance on AI-generated content in application forms is strongly discouraged and we will conduct a thorough screening process before selecting candidates to progress to the next stage. If you are using AI to enhance your application, please disclose this in your NHS Jobs application form.