MHST Operational Manager - North Locality

MHSTs work in partnership with schools, colleges and the wider children and young people's system to provide early mental health and emotional wellbeing support for children and young people.

The service provides timely, accessible and evidence-based interventions, working collaboratively with children, young people, parents, carers and education settings. The Operational Manager has an important role in ensuring that services are safe, effective, responsive and well integrated with the wider mental health and wellbeing system.

MHSTs include Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) alongside a wider multidisciplinary workforce, and a key part of this role will be creating the operational environment in which both established and newly recruited staff can develop and thrive. The Job Description specifically identifies supporting EMHPs, trainees and senior staff, as well as ensuring effective induction, orientation, mentorship and development arrangements for new colleagues.

A key role in our next phase of expansion

This post will be onboarded ahead of a significant recruitment programme for our new MHSTs, and we are therefore particularly looking for someone with strong experience and knowledge of:

Experience of complex project management and managing major changes in service provision are essential requirements within the person specification, alongside effective leadership, staff and budget management, analytical skills and the ability to motivate teams through new challenges.

You will work closely with our recruitment and HR colleagues and the wider MHST leadership team to help ensure our new services have the right workforce in place, at the right time, with the right support around them.

Supporting our future EMHP workforce

A particularly important element of the role will be supporting our newly recruited EMHP trainees as they begin their journey within MHST.

You will help ensure that trainees and newly appointed colleagues receive a positive introduction to the service, have effective induction and support arrangements in place and feel part of both their individual MHST and the wider Essex MHST programme.

The Operational Manager is expected to ensure trainees are actively supported to meet their learning needs and to support new staff to integrate successfully into the team.

Welcoming new schools into MHST

As our teams expand, so will the number of education settings we work alongside.

Working collaboratively with the MHST leadership team, you will support the onboarding of new schools across North Chelmsford, Braintree and Tendring, building strong relationships with education partners and ensuring that expansion is well planned, coordinated and communicated.

Partnership working is fundamental to the role, with key relationships including education settings, primary care, local authorities, voluntary sector organisations and wider children's services.

What will you bring?

We are looking for an operational leader who is enthusiastic, organised, visible and comfortable working at pace.

You will need to be someone who can balance the immediate practicalities of recruitment and mobilisation with the longer-term task of building sustainable, high-quality teams.

The post also requires a professionally registered, post-graduate qualified psychological practitioner or graduate-qualified healthcare professional, alongside relevant management experience, as set out fully within the person specification.

You won't be doing this alone

Although this is a significant leadership role, you will be joining an already established and experienced Essex MHST service.

You will work alongside the Head of Service, Clinical Leads and a wider group of experienced MHST Operational Managers, providing an established leadership network with colleagues who understand the opportunities and challenges of growing MHST services.

This means you will have the opportunity to bring your own leadership experience and ideas while also benefiting from the knowledge, support and learning of managers who are already successfully leading MHSTs across Essex.

The role works particularly closely with the Head of Service and Locality Clinical Lead to ensure the effective day-to-day running of services, alongside responsibility for workforce planning, finance, staff in training, performance and longer-term sustainability.

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health and community services for over 4.9 million people living in the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, and across Essex.

We work to ensure our patients, their friends and family, feel confident that their health needs are well met. With an excellent reputation for research and development, our skilled health professionals are at the cutting edge of evidence-based innovation, opening up the possibilities for better ways of working and delivery of care.

Qualifications

Essential: - Please refer to JD

Desirable: - Please refer to JD