Clinical Assessor

At King's, our purpose is to put knowledge to work for the benefit of society. Strategy 2030 builds on almost 200 years of excellence, setting out our shared ambition to respond to a changing world while remaining true to our mission. As a member of our community, you will help us deliver our ambitions across our five strategic priorities: delivering student success in and beyond the University; investing in research and education excellence; fostering innovation and entrepreneurship; building sustainable finances for a secure future; and strengthening an inclusive, collaborative and inspiring University community.

You will join the Student & Academic Services Directorate, a diverse community of professional services colleagues dedicated to supporting students throughout their journey at King's, from enrolment through to graduation and beyond. Working closely with faculties and teams across the University, we deliver high-quality services and seamless administrative processes that enable student success and help ensure every student can thrive and achieve their potential.

Counselling & Mental Health Support (CMHS) provides timely, compassionate and clinically appropriate mental health support to King's students. We are committed to developing an equitable and inclusive service, designed with the needs of our diverse student community in mind, ensuring students can access the right support at the right time.

About the role:

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to make a meaningful contribution to student mental health and wellbeing, and who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in mental health assessment, risk assessment and clinical decision-making. This is an opportunity to grow your skills in triage and assessment within a diverse university community.

As a Clinical Assessor, you will work with students to understand their presenting concerns, mental health history, risk and therapeutic goals, using your clinical judgement to determine the most appropriate support. This may include short-term counselling within the service, support available elsewhere at King's, or referral to appropriate NHS and community services.

You will contribute to the triage of student referrals and the allocation of students to the most appropriate support pathway, dependent on the needs of the student. You will work closely with colleagues across Counselling & Mental Health Support and the wider University. You will join an established team with expertise in triage and allocation, with full training and ongoing support provided.

This is a part time post at 0.6FTE (21 hours per week), offered on an indefinite contract.

Essential criteria:

- Demonstrated ability to carry out mental health assessments with students, identifying risk; mental health history; therapeutic goals and suitability for students to access Counselling in a short term, five session, solution focused service delivery model, or suitability for more specialist mental health services, external to the University.

- Experience of balancing the need to share information appropriately to ensure the effective management of risk with the need for confidentiality and data protection legislation compliance, safeguarding obligations and escalating risk where necessary.

- Demonstrated empathy for, and understanding of, the psychosocial issues and concerns experienced by students undertaking university level studies.

- Demonstrated high-level competence in providing therapeutic assessments that are trauma informed and culturally appropriate with individuals of diverse backgrounds and presenting concerns.

- Experience triaging client/patient referrals to a Counselling or Mental Health Service, identifying suitable referrals and processing those referrals through the service's triaging and allocation system; identify referrals which are not suitable and communicate this to students with a clear referral pathway to internal and external services.

- Possesses high-level communication (written and oral) and interpersonal skills, including liaison and influencing skills to work collaboratively, flexibly, and productively within and across teams to provide advice on student mental health issues and service to students; letter writing where required to support student's applications for mitigating circumstances, and other letters as required on request – where suitable.

- Applicants must have a relevant academic professional qualification and current professional accreditation in the field of mental health nursing, mental health social work or psychology.

Desirable criteria:

- Previous experience providing student mental health support in an HE setting.

This post is subject to Disclosure and Barring Service and/or Occupational Health clearances.