headspace School Clinician

• Fixed term contract position – 12 months
• Part-time hours – FTE 0.6 (3 days per week)
• Location: headspace Narre Warren and Dandenong

Who we are

At EACH, our vision is for a healthy and inclusive community.

Founded on the vision that everyone is entitled to good health, we’re one of the nation’s leading health and community services providers, offering a broad range of services for over 40 years. Our services include Community Health, Mental Health, NDIS, Counselling, Support for Older Australians and Family Services.

Who we’re looking for

To be successful in the headspace School Clinician role, you will:

• Have outstanding clinical skills in working with young people and their families/carers with mental health issues in an early intervention framework;
• Be experienced in the provision of mental health assessments, psycho-education and short-term interventions to young people experiencing moderate severity mental health difficulties as well as thorough understanding of the mental health and broader service system;
• Have an understanding of the challenges facing young people and their families around school refusal;
• Have experience working within or with schools;
• Have demonstrated high-level interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal), problem solving and negotiation skills especially with young people in the early stages of help seeking;
• Have an ability to maintain positive stakeholder relationships and work collaboratively with internal and external stakeholders i.e. young people, school staff, local community, government agencies, private practitioners etc;
• Have demonstrated experience in working with young people and an understanding of adolescent development for example well developed counselling, mediation and assessment skills;
• Be experienced working with young people and families from diverse backgrounds and Indigenous communities;
• Hold experience and knowledge of various evidence-based treatment modalities and implementation of group work activities (e.g. self-esteem, anxiety management etc.).

What you’ll be doing

The headspace School Clinician role will have two key focus areas:

• The role is largely focused around school refusal within the headspace centres, supporting 12 – 16 year old young people who are disengaged from school due to their mental health and psycho-social challenges. The clinician will be required to undertake a number of activities including but not limited to engaging, assessing and providing a range of effective short-term interventions and counselling support to students, as well as work closely with families, services and schools in order to support young people to remain engaged in school.

• When required by the School Services Team Leader, the School Clinician will provide in-reach to other schools. In these situations, the clinician will be fulfilling a more generalist mental health clinician role for a limited period, facilitating access and referral to appropriate services as indicated by assessment and care planning processes. This will include direct service to young people, families and carers as well as consultation and support to other professionals, agencies and members of the community engaged in the young person’s care.

Who you’ll be working with

You will be part of the headspace South Eastern Melbourne team of professional Clinicians.

What we offer

EACH offers all staff benefits by offering Not for Profit Salary Packaging, a family friendly workplace strategy and support through a comprehensive Employee Assistance Program.