CEN Practitioner

Job summary

Are you a registered mental health professional keen to make a meaningful difference and develop specialist skills? Join our innovative Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) Team and help shape a psychology-led pathway across the Black Country.

Working alongside Community Mental Health Teams, we provide coordinated, trauma-informed and non-stigmatising care for people with complex emotional needs. As a Band 6 CEN Practitioner, you will work across the four Black Country localities within a developing service. A smaller caseload and more frequent, purposeful contact will enable you to build therapeutic relationships and deliver creative, personalised, recovery-focused support.

The role offers opportunities to

Help shape a new service.

Develop specialist CEN knowledge and skills.

Work within an integrated multidisciplinary network.

Deliver relationship-based care using professional judgement and creativity.

We welcome registered mental health nurses, occupational therapists and social workers. Experience of complex emotional needs and knowledge of DBT would be beneficial, alongside an understanding of trust, consistency, compassionate boundaries and person-centred language.

If you are curious, resilient and passionate about improving care, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

In this varied and rewarding role, you will develop high-quality, formulation-led risk management and care plans with a strong psychological focus. You will work directly with people accessing the service by delivering intervention led support while providing leadership, guidance and support to CEN Wellbeing & Recovery Facilitators. Working in close partnership with Community Mental Health Teams and medical colleagues, you will help ensure that agreed care plans and positive risk-management strategies are understood and delivered consistently. You will be encouraged to develop through regular supervision, reflective practice and constructive feedback, with day-to-day support from CEN psychologists and Clinical Leads. You may also have opportunities to undertake training in evidence-informed approaches relevant to complex emotional needs, such as Structured Clinical Management, cognitive behavioural therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy.

Job responsibilities

Clinical Work You will manage a smaller caseload, enabling you to provide more intensive, responsive support and Interventions and meet with people more frequently. You will undertake assessments, coordinate clinical care and respond flexibly to emerging needs. With supervision from the CEN MDT, you will develop bespoke, formulation-led care plans, positive risk-management plans and psychologically based interventions that reflect each persons needs and goals. Through close liaison and shared agreement with the wider Community Mental Health Team, you will help ensure these plans are understood and implemented consistently.

Teamwork You will be a valued member of the pan-Trust CEN Team, working alongside psychologists, CEN Clinical Leads and Wellbeing & Recovery Facilitators, and alongside the Community Mental Health Teams across the trust. You will contribute to multidisciplinary team meetings, provide in-reach support to inpatient services, and attend professionals meetings and case conferences as required to promote coordinated, consistent care.

Training, Reflective Practice and Supervision You will participate in regular supervision and reflective practice within the CEN pathway, supporting your professional development and the delivery of safe, effective care. You will undertake relevant training to strengthen your knowledge and skills in working with people with complex emotional needs. As your experience develops, you may also contribute to supervision and reflective practice for Community Mental Health Team colleagues and CEN Wellbeing & Recovery Facilitators.

Professional Responsibilities You will practise in accordance with your professional code of conduct, relevant legislation, Trust policies and Trust values. You will maintain high standards of care, professional accountability and accurate, timely clinical records, while promoting safe, compassionate and person-centred practice in your own work and across the wider team.

For more details see attached Job description

About the employer

Black Country Healthcare covers three towns and one city, and is home to a highly diverse population, with areas of socio-economic deprivation. We offer both community and in-patient services to children and adults with mental health difficulties, learning disabilities and autism and work in partnership with the third sector and Local Authorities.

We aim to recruit a workforce that is representative of our population and inclusive practice is at the heart of our Trust values, with the aim that everyone has a voice that needs to be heard. We aim to develop and co-produce our services and have a strong cohort of Lived Experience Practitioners. We believe in a culture of compassion and strongly promote staff Wellbeing initiatives.