About the job

Job summary

Are you a highly skilled Senior Mental Health Social Worker looking for an exciting and rewarding role working alongside the military? Are you seeking job satisfaction, numerous benefits, and training opportunities? Would you like your career to take a different direction into a friendly and professional organisation? If the answer is yes, you would be well-suited to the HEO Senior Mental Health Social Worker role within the Department for Community Mental Health at RAF Kinloss.

The vacant post is part time, working 20 hours per week. 

Does this sound like the role for you? If so, we would love to hear from you!

About Us

Our success depends on our people, our Whole Force regular and reservist military, civil servants and contractors, all working as one, working together seamlessly to deliver for us.

Our civil servants are a central part of this Whole Force, developing strategy, making policy, supporting ministerial decision-making and Parliamentary processes. In fact, with over 2,000 different roles working across 650 sites around the world, now really is an excellent time to join one of the largest, most exciting departments in government.

The Ministry of Defence is committed to attracting and retaining people from across the full range of backgrounds and enabling flexible ways of working as the norm. We offer maternity, adoption or shared parental leave of up to 26 weeks full pay followed by 13 weeks of statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, and paternity leave of 2 weeks full pay.

In return, you can expect a department that helps you learn and develop that recognises your expertise and contribution, both as an individual and part of a team.

If you've ever wanted to do more, see more, go further or be better, we have roles in more professions and vocations than ever before. Let's see where your future will take you, together.

Job description

The successful candidate will provide effective Mental Health Social Work in support of the designated Mental Health Team.

Person specification

Main duties of this role will include but not be limited to:

• Providing effective Mental Health Social Work (MHSW) in support of a designated Department of Community Mental Health, Defence Mental Health Social Work Service and the wider Defence Mental Health Services.
• Contributing to the development of service delivery including suggesting developmental initiatives in support of observations.
• Managing patient caseloads according to Defence Community Mental Health (DCMH) allocation processes and practices as directed by the clinical team lead / Manager and the MHSW Regional Lead.
• Supporting the management of the DCMH by providing direct delivery advice for MHSW to the DCMH line manager and or the MHSW Regional Lead.
• Supporting management and DCMH by providing advice and support on safeguarding issues and practicing as the DCMH Safeguarding Lead.
• Undertaking such additional clinical/management tasks as may be appropriate to the grade and the role agreed in discussion with your line manager / Regional lead / HoS.

Please refer to the attached Terms of Reference document for further information.

Knowledge and Experience Criteria for this role

• An understanding and working knowledge of all relevant social care legislation – Mental Health Act (MHA) (83), Mental Capacity Act (MCA) (05) including: Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS) (LPS) , Care Act 14, ECHR (98) and Adult and Children Safeguarding Level 3 (or devolved nations equivalents), European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (Section 98).
• Significant post qualification experience, which must be within mental health services. Experience in risk assessment and mental state.
• Experience of working with clients with a range of complex mental health difficulties.
• A thorough understanding and working knowledge of mental disorders and treatment options including the recovery model.
• Caseload Management experience in a multi-professional setting

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,290, Ministry of Defence contributes £9,528 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

The sift will be completed within 5 working days of the vacancy closing date. Interviews will be held on a date to be confirmed. There will be no reimbursement for any travel expenses for the interview. 

The selection at sift stage will be based on your application form and the Behaviours listed in the advert. At interview, you will be tested against the Behaviours listed in the advert. 

Please ensure you demonstrate that you have the required skills, knowledge, experience, qualifications and memberships in the CV section of the application form. Please make sure no personal details are included. 

To be considered for this role, qualifications and memberships detailed must be held in full, prior to submitting your application. 

Please see the link to our Youtube channel for advice preparing your best responses with some hints and tips on answering behaviour based questions. Hints and tips such as: Your behaviours can be based on situations from work, volunteering or home; match your situation to the behaviour requested and how to use your 250-word limit.  

Defence Medical Services - YouTube 

All employees joining Ministry of Defence who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a 6-month probation period (unless otherwise advised) effective from the employment start date. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. 

Please note the salary will be pro-rata where part time hours are undertaken.  

There is no requirement to deploy as this is met by our uniformed personnel, but you will form the continuity of care required by our patients when based at home. 

This vacancy is part of the A Great Place to Work for Veterans initiative. For more information copy and paste the following into your browser or search gov.uk: Making-the-civil-service-a-great-place-to-work-for-veterans. 

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. This role does not meet that category and we will not sponsor a visa.  It is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points based system.  

Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn.  

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.  

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact dbscivpers-sgdmsresourcingteam@mod.gov.uk. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.