Senior Assertive Outreach Practitioner
Job Overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Band 7 Team Lead to join our newly established Assertive Outreach Team (AOT) in Hillingdon.
This is a key leadership role within a transformational model of care, designed to support individuals with severe mental illness who are at risk of disengagement and require intensive, proactive community-based support.
This is a high-impact, community-focused role, where you will lead a team delivering care directly to patients in their homes and local communities, ensuring no one is lost to follow-up.
The Assertive Outreach Team (AOT) role is fundamentally a patient-facing position, focused on engaging and managing individuals who are often reluctant to engage with services. Given the nature of this work, requiring proactive outreach, direct contact, and consistent face-to-face intervention, the role is not suitable for remote or hybrid working arrangements.
Main duties of the job
- Provide clinical and operational leadership to a multidisciplinary outreach team
- Ensure delivery of high-intensity, assertive engagement, including home visits and community-based care
- Lead on risk management, safety planning and complex clinical decision-making for a high-risk cohort
- Deliver and embed a model based on:
- Persistent engagement
- No discharge due to non-attendance
- Proactive, flexible contact with patients
- Provide line management, supervision and support to team members
- Oversee team performance, caseloads and quality of care delivery
- Work collaboratively with CMHT/CMHH, Crisis Teams, inpatient services and partner agencies to ensure coordinated care pathways
- Going out to patients
- Maintaining engagement when others disengage
- Providing practical support that prevents crisis
- Not clinic based
Working for our organisation
The Team is committed to delivering safe, compassionate and high-quality care across all services.
The Assertive Outreach Team is a new and developing service, offering:
The opportunity to shape and lead a new model of care
- A strong focus on patient safety, engagement and outcomes
- A supportive multidisciplinary environment with clear leadership oversight
- Opportunities for professional development within a growing Trust-wide model
Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities
Essential
- Registered mental health professional (e.g. RMN, OT, Social Worker)
- Experience working with complex mental health needs and high-risk patients
- Experience of clinical leadership, supervision and team management
- Strong skills in risk assessment, care planning and crisis management
- Experience of community-based or outreach working
- Driving licence and access to a vehicle for work
Desirable
- Experience in assertive outreach, crisis or urgent care services
- Experience of service development or transformation
Person specification
Education & Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Registered professional qualification (e.g. RMN, OT, Social Worker or equivalent)
- Current professional registration (NMC, HCPC, Social Work England)
- Evidence of post-registration training relevant to mental health / community services
Desirable criteria
- Leadership or management qualification or training
- Training in Psychosocial Interventions Other relevant training, e.g. psychosocial interventions
- Counselling qualification
- Venepuncture qualification
- ECG application qualification
Experience
Essential criteria
- Significant experience working with individuals with complex mental health needs and high risk
- Experience of working with disengaged or hard-to-engage service users in a community setting
- Experience of risk assessment, safety planning and crisis management
- Experience of leading or supervising staff within a clinical team
- Experience of operational management (e.g. rota management, performance, workload oversight)
- Experience of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working
Desirable criteria
- Experience of service development or mobilisation of new models of care
- Experience in assertive outreach, crisis services or urgent care settings
