Mental health and wellbeing practitioner
Mental health and wellbeing practitioners (MHWPs) provide evidence-based interventions and co-ordinate care plans for adults with severe mental health problems.
Based in the community, you’ll have an important role in supporting adults of all ages to live fulfilling lives. You do not provide psychological therapy but deliver effective wellbeing interventions to help people recover and improve their lives.
Life as a mental health and wellbeing practitioner
This will include providing psychological interventions around:
- behavioural activation and graded exposure using the ‘GOALS’ programme
- problem solving
- improving sleep
- recognising and managing emotions
- guided self-help for bulimia and binge-eating
- confidence building
- managing medicines
How much can I earn?
How about the benefits?
- make a difference
- work flexible and part-time hours
If you’re employed by the NHS you’ll also have good holiday entitlement and access to:
- fully funded training plus a salary while you train and a job in the service when you qualify
- an excellent pension scheme
- NHS discounts in shops and restaurants
Must-have skills
- excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to build trusting and productive relationships with a range of people
- the ability to work well within a multidisciplinary team
- a good understanding of mental health issues
- strong written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to tailor them to a variety of audiences
- the ability to work independently and think quickly in often challenging situations
- the creativity to solve problems and tackle obstacles in new ways
- effective time management skills to juggle competing demands in a busy and sometimes pressured work environment
Entry requirements
Most importantly, you’ll need to be able to demonstrate a willingness to work in a hopeful and productive way with adults with severe mental health problems.
To get started you’ll need to apply for a position as a trainee mental health and wellbeing practitioner. To apply, you will need:
- the values and interpersonal and communication skills needed to provide hopeful, person-centred care
- a commitment to working with people with complex mental health needs
- a demonstrable ability to study at degree level or above
- the motivation and commitment to undertake and complete the course
How to become a mental health and wellbeing practitioner
Training
During the one-year training programme, you’ll spend one day a week studying at university and the remaining three to four days working on specific training tasks in a community mental health service. You will have regular meetings with your supervisor to support you in your work to help you engage in self-reflection, seek and respond to feedback, and develop your professional knowledge and skills.
Once qualified, you’ll spend at least 20 hours a week seeing patients, either in a clinic, their own homes or via video link or telephone. You will also build relationships across the adult mental health care system, establishing a detailed understanding of related services so that you can help co-ordinate care.
Where a career as a mental health and wellbeing practitioner can take you
MHWP is a new role and progression opportunities are still being developed.
It’s important to note that a two-year psychological professions funding rule policy was implemented on 1 April 2022. This means that if you start NHS-funded psychological professions training from April 2022, you won’t be eligible for NHS funding for further psychological profession training for two years from the expected completion date of your first training, where it would lead to a change in your job role.