Mental Health and Outreach Practitioner

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us.

King’s College London Counselling and Mental Health Support Service are seeking to recruit a full-time Outreach and Training Mental Health Practitioner on a full-time permanent contract. The applicant will have specialist knowledge of issues related to student mental health, including the assessment and management of risk, mental health assessment and academic problems assessment (ie risk of dropping out of studies, not completing studies), be a fully trained and accredited counsellor, therapist, or mental health practitioner and have extensive experience of delivering mental health training to staff. This training may include suicide prevention, self-harm, and mental health awareness. The post holder will ideally be accredited with Mental Health First Aid England.

You will be joining a new provision within the Outreach and Training team of our Counselling & Mental Health Support service, and your role will mainly be using your specialist knowledge and experience of supporting non- clinically trained staff to develop confidence and skills in helping manage mental health and wellbeing issues arising in primarily emerging adult- particularly student populations.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so.

As a trainer you will be delivering bespoke as well as Mental Health First Aid training to support staff. This role will include supervision to an expanding MHFAider network of staff. You will be part of a mental health training team focused on the delivery and planning of mental health training to staff university wide.

You will have experience and current accreditation as a mental health practitioner or a mental health social worker. This post is also suitable for a fully accredited counsellor who is an accredited &/ or experienced trainer. You will work closely with the other branches of the Counselling and Mental Health Support Service (Counselling, Mental Health Support, Mental Health Strategy and Wellbeing).  Focus is on helping develop our provision at Levels 1 and 2 (Universal & Targeted Provision) as part of the King’s Pyramid of Support. You will ensure that staff in student facing roles who are not specialists in mental health are provided with the training to equip them in managing mental health concerns. These include particularly staff such as Personal Tutors, Libraries staff, Security and Reception teams but will extend to all staff at King’s for whom increased awareness, skills and confidence in supporting mental health issues amongst students would help them in their role.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to deliver mental health training in the university setting, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in student and staff mental health in the Higher Education sector,. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in training delivery.

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.

This post will be offered on a permanent contract,

This is a full-time post, but we welcome applications from candidates seeking a flexible work pattern within our necessary service operating hours.

This is currently a hybrid working role with both work from home and on campus. The role will be based in our department, currently on the Strand campus.

Key Responsibilities

• Deliver and plan mental health training to staff.  
• Deliver MHFA accredited training to staff. 
• Offer and plan guidance, reflective practice and supervision to staff university wide.  
• Attend regular clinical & management supervision and multidisciplinary team meetings 
• Manage a small clinical caseload delivering short-term counselling interventions to students registered with the service 
• Maintain relevant professional registration or accreditation  

The above list of responsibilities may not be exhaustive, and the post holder will be required to undertake such tasks and responsibilities as may reasonably be expected within the scope and grading of the post.

Skills, knowledge, and experience

Please clearly address how you meet the essential criteria in your application, and where possible how you meet the desirable criteria as well.

Essential criteria  

Desirable criteria

Further Information

Please submit a personal statement when applying for this vacancy, clearly setting out how you meet the essential criteria, as this is how we shortlist applications. Learn more about how we recruit, including tips on writing your application and supporting statement on our website: https://jobs.kcl.ac.uk/gb/en/applying   

If you are a student or alumni of King’s there are resources from King’s Careers & Employability to support you in your application and interview. 

Interviews will be held in person nd will consist of competency-based questions linked closely to the essential and desirable criteria mentioned here. 

Although we have made improvements over the last number of years, our team is still under-represented in terms of staff from global majority ethnicities, LGBTQ+ identities, and from people with disabilities. We encourage applications from all backgrounds, communities and industries, and are committed to employing a team that has diverse skills, experiences and abilities.