What is a mental health and wellbeing practitioner? (MHWP)

Dr Marianne Trent (: 00:00

Coming up in today's episode, we are introduced to the new kid on the block. We are looking at the role of mental health and wellbeing practitioner. What is it? How can you train? Is it, what does it involve? I'm joined by a brand new qualified mental health wellbeing practitioner called Harriet. Hope you will find it so useful. It may just lead to your future career.

(: 00:30

Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent and I'm a qualified clinical psychologist. Now the route to becoming a qualified psychologist, whichever you prefer, may well involve different jobs, different roles, different transitions, or of course we may choose to stop at any of the stages before and without progressing to qualified psychologist status. Today's guest contacted me to ask if I'd heard of this brand new kid on the block, which is called Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner. I hadn't, but I was very interested to learn more. So I've invited her on and we're going to learn together. So I hope you find this so useful. I will look forward to catching you on the other side. Hi, just want to welcome along Harriet Barnes to the podcast. Hi Harriet.

Harriet Barnes (: 01:27

Hello.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:28

Thank you so much for reaching out to me to help us learn more about the new role, but also the role that you are doing, which is the mental health and wellbeing practitioner.

Harriet Barnes (: 01:39

Yes. Yeah, that's right. Thank you for having me.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 01:42

That's all right. I love being able to help illuminate new career options. So this sounds like a really viable job and potentially career for somebody that's done a psychology degree. Is that right?

Harriet Barnes (: 01:54

That's right, yeah. In the entry requirements, when I applied for the role, there wasn't even a requirement for it to be a psychology degree necessarily. So one element of the role is that it's encouraging people into a psychological profession or having the ability to provide psychologically informed interventions. So that's quite important to acknowledge that they're informed from lots of different backgrounds because they're quite keen to understandably sort of diversify the number and type of people offering psychology. So a lot of people in the role that I'm aware of do have a psychology degree, but not everybody, and it's certainly not a requirement when I applied at least.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 02:38

Great. Thanks for clarifying that. Did you do a psychology degree?

Harriet Barnes (: 02:42

I did, yes. Yes. So if you want to know a tiny bit about my background, everybody's background is so varied. It's not an example of a perfect what you would need, but just so you can have an understanding. So I did my psychology degree and then I went to work in education. So I'd worked as an a-level psychology teacher and a few other roles around that for 15 years. And alongside that, I did my teaching master's and also a master's in psychological research and then took a few other roles just for a year or two because I wanted to have an experience outside of education, working with asylum seekers, working at a university, so not really out of education but a different type of education. And then applied for this role, which has training attached to it as well. So since I applied, I've completed my mental health and wellbeing practitioner training.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 03:35

Gosh, amazing. So you are a fully qualified teacher with years and years of experience must I think what I really like about psychology careers or about careers generally is that if you kind of have different careers, like a series of them, you don't just stop bringing the stuff from your previous career, you're able to almost integrate and formulate whatever you're doing with the people you're working with, the knowledge you bring forward. You don't stop being an a-level teacher, do you bring that with you and that enhances your role. And I think it's clear that you're not doing a-level teaching, but all the skills, all of the kind of engagement, the brilliant way you'll have engaged your pupils over the years and had to stop them being rowdy I'm sure is useful. You bring that with you.

Harriet Barnes (: 04:23

Yeah, absolutely. I didn't expect, and it sort of seems silly now looking back, but the time I sort of thought this is, I almost felt like I was going into something completely brand new in the same way as I was when I first went into teaching. So first started my career, I thought, gosh, I'm really starting right from the beginning again. And in some ways I was absolutely, it's a new environment. It's getting used to working within different systems within the NHS, just like you would in any changing any kind of organisation and sort of more of a focus on risk because of the client group that the MHWP role works with. But actually unexpectedly a lot of the skills because as much as I've taught in groups, all my interventions are one-to-one, and I have actually done one-to-one teaching as well in A levels.

(: 05:08

And you're absolutely right, I have to be very mindful to be fully a teacher wouldn't be appropriate in a psychological intervention. But a lot of the skills being able to pick up if somebody's saying they've got an example, but maybe they haven't or if they're drifting off and losing engagement, how to bring them back and just knowing how to communicate sort of psychological concepts to somebody in an accessible way. Yeah, definitely a lot more of the skills than I realised were transferable. And I think that was the case for a lot of people on my course with their different backgrounds, whatever they were that they found, a lot of the skills they developed just through life and through having any kind of career was really valuable.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 05:48

And of course it's making me think about the transactional analysis of how we interact with each other. And I dunno if that's anything you are familiar with, but there's three circles of stacked one on top of the other, and I think it's parent, teacher, child, and it's making sure that we know at any one time which role we're in. So at the moment, if this is something you are not familiar with or our audience is not familiar with, I'm doing the teaching, but it is useful in arguments when we realise sometimes me and my 10-year-old are both stuck in child and that doesn't help an argument to come to a nice amicable end. So just being able to sometimes in the moment be able to just observe where we're at. And I'm not a transactional analysis expert there, so if anyone's like, look, that's entirely wrong. What I know I'm right about is there's three circles and we need to look at where we're at. So if anyone wants to come on and discuss that because I've got it all horrendously wrong, please do feel free. So what happened then? Were you already working in a role and then you heard about the MHWP or you saw it advertised? How did that unfold for you?

Harriet Barnes (: 06:55

Yeah, so I was working in a role in teaching and also working for a charity as well. And about a year after I'd finished my full-time, a-level psychology teaching role, and it was always something I'd wanted to do, but decided now was the right time, so just started to look for job adverts. So not too many tips in terms of finding them, but they're definitely out there just on the NHS, it was the NHS jobs, track websites I came across, I'm trying to think what search terms I used because at the time I didn't actually know the role existed. It's a very new role. I was in the second cohort, the first cohort of people recruited across the country, haven't even been qualified a year yet, so it was very new when I was looking at it in the summer of 2022. So I just use lots of different search terms and I think, I guess for me it was just being open-minded, so it could have perhaps been an assistant psychology role I was looking at or a psychological wellbeing practitioner role. And then when I saw this one, I was just open-minded to this one possibly being one that I'd be interested in as well.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 08:09

Amazing. I know when I was looking for roles, I used to just literally sometimes search through all of the band four and five jobs within 30 miles of my house just to see if there was anything that would use my skills that I could apply for. So I think just getting a bit crafty with your search terms is a really good idea. Is it a funded role to train?

Harriet Barnes (: 08:32

Yes. Yeah. When I applied for it, it was called a trainee mental health and wellbeing practitioner role. So it came with a year of training that was funded by the service and then once you were in service, you remain with the service that you train in the team that I trained in, once I had qualified, I moved from a band four to a band five and remained within that team as a permanent member of the team. So that's quite nice. I think that's quite different speaking to the nurses in the community mental health team, once they qualify lots of roles they have then have to look for a job. So there's the stress of qualifying and doing all the hard work and then on top of that, not necessarily knowing straight away where you work. So that's a really nice thing about this role. You do a year of funded training and working in the service at the same time, so you're building the relationship, starting to cement where the role fits within the team. And then once you're qualified, if anything, whilst it's new because then you're qualified and your responsibilities change slightly. It's the relief of just working in service and not having to do any of the training, which is quite nice.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 09:42

Yeah, ideal. So it's the service of identified, there's a gap in the market for this role. We will train the person, get to know them, and then almost like a preceptorship. Then you graduate and you become your band five qualified MHWP. Are there assignments and things to do along the way as well, Harriet?

Harriet Barnes (: 10:03

Yeah, so I started the training in November, 2022. Yes, and there are three modules in it, so it varies, but generally it's about two or three days out of your role is on training. And my training was online and I would assume that most with a university, and I'd assume that most posts would be online because our university covered a huge area geographically. So I think realistically that's what most universities would also do. And there were three modules. The first module had an assignment and something called an OSCI attached to it and focused on assessing people with, and that this is a phrase that's used in the course because it's connected to the role and why exists for working with people with severe mental health needs compared to iapt or perhaps as they're called now. Talking therapies are mild to moderate mental health needs. This role is aimed more at people with what they call severe mental health needs or complex mental health needs.

(: 11:07

And so the first module is assessing, so coming in and we learn things like the five Ps formulation, how to build a relationship with someone, a rapport, how to assess risk, how to develop that formulation. The second module is around care planning and that has an assignment and a reflective essay to it attached to it. And that's about how to, as the module suggests, how to plan somebody's care. So how to think about ensuring that all of the needs are met in the most appropriate way, enjoy the most is looking at the interventions that we offer. And that's the same thing, it's an assignment and then something called an OSCE.

(: 11:53

And both of the assignments both in module one and module three are case studies. So you work with a particular person and then anonymously write up a case study about how you either assess 'em if it's module one or how you provided a psychological intervention, if it was module three and essentially and the way role plays. So the way they did them, I know they've changed, they're slightly different now, but the way that mine was done is they hired people with lived experience of mental health needs to play the role of a service user or a patient. And then they watched us live and recorded us as we provided. In the first one we provided an assessment session and in the second OSCE we provided a psychological intervention which they chose for us, which was confidence, our confidence building one. I think that's changed now.

(: 12:53

I guess it all depends how you feel about OSCE's and how things work. I think they've changed it to try and make it a little less stressful in that you can now record it with someone else, another member of staff in the team as the service user, or if you have a service user, you can use it, you can ask them to do it. So you don't have the pressure of knowing there's a third person right there in the moment live listening to you and judging you, although that sounds really scary. I found actually that they were really supportive. They're really keen for you to achieve everything that you need to and understand everything you need to, but they are really keen to support you to pass. They want you to pass, they're not there to make your life difficult or hide what the assessment criteria is. They were supportive as possible, so it wasn't as scary as it quite sounded.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 13:46

Amazing. Thank you. That's so illuminating. And it's also made me reflect upon my first ever assignment as a trainee clinical psychologist, which was a role plays. We were divided into groups of three. I think one of us was doing filming, one of us was doing the talking, and then one of us was a patient and then it was service users who rated what they thought about us. I think there was three service users rated each of our videos and it felt mortifying. I think anybody who's going to train the mental health role is going to need to be able to tolerate their distress at the idea there will be role plays and that there may well be feedback on those role plays and we just need to kind of hold notice that distress, but then being able to tune into the feedback. And in my case, it was good. I remember one piece of feedback from my service user said, there's nothing I wouldn't talk to her about. She's really welcoming, she's really compassionate. I was like, oh, well that's alright.

Harriet Barnes (: 14:48

That's a high compliment, isn't it?

Dr Marianne Trent (: 14:52

And then I think that gives you permission then to go on, doesn't it? Actually, maybe I'm not as bad as I thought I was. Maybe this is all right. So in the podcast I think it's often quite helpful to think about jargon busting and often I use loads of jargon. I know what things need, almost like the jargon we use is common sense. Always try to put it in and in full so that people know what you mean. What does OSCE stand for? Do you know Harriet?

Harriet Barnes (: 15:22

Yeah. Well it sounds for objective structured clinical examination, but you're absolutely right. I had to look it up and we used it on the course without even questioning it really. And then as asked what it stood for and I thought, oh, I don't actually know. So you are right. It's very easy to fall into that trap of using jargon and not realising. Definitely I think as well with you mentioning about feedback, that was a skill that I discovered that something I'd developed through my teaching that I then was able to apply and something that again, gosh didn't expect, but that would be something I'd need to do. I found feedback really valuable, but it was very tempting to be quite self-critical and focus on the negatives and beat yourself up about the things that you couldn't change. And in teach for anyone who doesn't know in teaching, there's a lot of observation that goes on.

(: 16:16

We're observed regularly in the classroom by management, by peers, and very occasionally by if we're really unlucky by osted. So I found that something really difficult that I needed to develop and I found something that I found really useful was I would print off or get in front of me my feedback and have it broken down at each point that was made and I found it. I skipped straight to the stuff that was about areas for development. So I found that I really made a point of focusing on the strengths, exactly like you said, to really remind myself of those. But then with the areas for development, I found myself going quite circularly around a point maybe that either I didn't agree with or I thought, well, that was just unfortunate on the day, or I can't change that. So what I found really helpful was I'd keep a clean copy, but I'd also have a copy where I would cross out any of those that I couldn't do anything about because that really helped me. Then instead of focusing on, oh, I can't do anything about that, that was how unfortunate it then actually they disappeared. And then I had to admit, well actually yeah, that is a valid point, but then instead of just thinking, oh, why did I let that happen? I think right now what can I do to change that? And I'd write that next to it, what is something I can move forward? And then I committed to putting that into place. So I found that a really useful way of managing feedback.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 17:45

Oh, thank you so much for sharing that with us. That's so important. And I think in these mental health careers, it's for your own development, but it's also for client safety. It's important that we have been observed that people have had a chance to experience what it's like to be in a room with us either virtually or actually in a room. And we need to shape, we need to grow. I genuinely care about easing the distress of the clients I work with. And if there's something I can do that would make that more likely to happen, I want to know it. But you absolutely sometimes because would be difficult. And sometimes this, I think we look at compassion focused therapy, sometimes the angry part of ourselves will be in charge, and that's the part that scribbles it all out because ridiculous whatcha talking about sometimes the sad part or the anxious part might be in control and that's got something different to say.

(: 18:39

Hopefully over time the combined compassion itself will be able to step into the fore and be a little bit more objective and supportive to yourself as a growing clinician. But also I think we should be observed as qualified clinicians as well. So every day is a school day and I think we can always improve, but sometimes I've worked with clients who've complained about me as well. Sometimes we are just not a good fit for everybody because we can't be. And sometimes we know that we've got a really, really good clinical rapport, rapport with somebody and sometimes we know it's just a little bit sticky and that's either, it's just something about some of us that we get together and it doesn't just doesn't work. It's not a fit. And so now you just need to think, well actually maybe this is best being assigned to a different condition, have a fresh start, someone that can just, I dunno, have a more natural rapport with this client. We're all different, aren't we?

Harriet Barnes (: 19:35

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a really big focus when they look to recruit people into the mental health role and also why they're really keen for a wide variety. So absolutely there are people with a psychological mental health background, but not everybody in the role. I believe in the recruitment process that a really big part of what they're looking at is understanding the importance of rapport and being able to build rapport. And I sometimes think that potentially people who haven't come from a mental health background might approach that in a different way. And especially for maybe people who've been with services for a long time, that can feel quite refreshing. And like you say that that fresh start for people, so in the interview there were the standard interview questions that you might expect, but there was also a role play in that as well.

(: 20:21

So they are quite a fan of role plays when you're going through the process. But that one was a really simple one. It was they didn't expect you to do anything because there's no expectation that you have any experience of clinical contact with people before. So it felt like they were looking for people who were comfortable to check in on risk. But the key thing was how you built a rapport with somebody, how you created that compassionate and safe space for them and that therapeutic relationship, which absolutely in reality when you're practising can't always happen. But I guess they're looking to see that you are able to with the majority of people.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 21:06

Thank you. So are you given a placement supervisor or is that just a general supervisor? Are you giving someone from the training course themselves to be your mentor or kind of tutor? How does it work in terms of support in the training and in your placement?

Harriet Barnes (: 21:28

So the main areas of support that are really helpful and also the formally expected and required by the course and every week you should have clinical supervision and every two weeks you should have caseload supervision and your clinical supervision. There's some strict requirements around them being somebody who's registered with the B-A-B-C-P and is either a psychologist or qualified CBT therapist because almost all of the interventions we offer are CBT informed. And then the caseload supervisor is somebody who's in the service is able to provide supervision. So for me, it was the same supervisor for both, but I know in some teams it's a mental health practitioner within the community mental health team. So someone with a nurse or OT background who's a band six, and then there is you get a mentor attached to you from the university, which is one of the members of staff.

(: 22:27

Obviously I'm only talking about my university and my experience who you could contact for queries around the academic stuff, which was really helpful. And then because this role was so new, I've been really lucky that I couldn't be involved in the start of peer developed support development. So somebody within our cohort, one has started a peer support group for mental health wellbeing practitioners within the role, the chance to talk about any concerns that we have or things like that. And she's asked, I've been able to be involved with that as well. So you do generally find that if there's a group of people who are doing the same thing and that grassroots, they all start to organise and develop some peer support and that's been really, really helpful as well. So they're the main and then really informal peer support. So the people on your course, you can message them and say, are you finding this assignment as difficult as me? Do you know what you're doing? And it can

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:28

Be really, normalisation is so important, isn't it? You've got to have a safe space. You absolutely have. Yeah,

Harriet Barnes (: 23:34

Absolutely. And that was all of those different types of support were helpful at different points and in different ways, but the peer support, that validation is really helpful. Having somebody, I'm lucky that I've got someone in a different team to me, but in the same office and we'd regularly in our wheelie chairs wheel over to each other and go, do you know what's going on

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:54

Now? I've got no clue either. Yeah,

Harriet Barnes (: 23:57

Exactly.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 23:59

I love that. Is there a senior mental health and wellbeing practitioner? I know that senior PWPs are emerging.

Harriet Barnes (: 24:09

Yeah, absolutely. So I dunno the full details, but so again, if somebody else knows, maybe they can come on and share that with you. But I believe the mental health and wellbeing practitioner role has come out of the community transformation work that's happening. So moving the community mental health teams towards a more psychological focus or to have more choice of psychological interventions, but it uses a PWP model. But unlike PWPs where there is an iap, a talking therapy office where people go, there's a service being created that's just those people, our role is similar, but we're placed within a service that already exists. So rather than the service being made, I've been placed into community mental health team as a role and just like the PWP, there are discussions about senior mental health wellbeing practitioners that we would be at Band six. They're still being decided right at the top of the level.

(: 25:13

So our trust don't, and just like any other trust in the country, don't have any plans to put any in place yet because they've not been advised by the strategic bodies above them, what that would look like. But there are hopes there's some discussion that it could be that we would have some kind of supervisory capacity and also we might be able to have additional training or the band sixes would have additional training to offer, I dunno what the right word is, but slightly more complex, still low level psychological intervention, but with a little additional training as well.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 25:57

Lovely. So are they just in adult mental health CMHT services or are they in cams, young people services, older adult services psychosis or it's fine, you don't know.

Harriet Barnes (: 26:12

Yeah, we're from talking to people on my course, were absolutely everywhere. So my understanding of the role was that be mostly in community mental health teams where they hold a caseload of people who are defined by the organisations having severe mental health needs. But actually we've been placed in and that's where I am, but there are people placed in lots of different places. So I believe there are people in early intervention psychosis, EIP in older adult services, in GP surgeries. So there's quite a lot of scope and based on the role and the interventions that we offer, it feels the fact that our interventions can be so helpful, their wellbeing interventions. So in theory, absolutely anybody could benefit from them. So even people not accessing mental health services, if you think about the kind of things that they, so we do behavioural activation, which is getting people doing a little bit more when they've got low mood, a graded exposure, kind of helping people access situations that create anxiety, confidence building problem solving, sleep interventions, guided self-help for binge eating disorder, and the seven.

(: 27:25

So there's one more that I've missed, but I wonder if I know I can identify that when I'm not feeling great, I start to do less or lose my routine or my sleep starts to struggle. So actually the fact that the interventions are so appropriate for everybody at lots of different levels, it doesn't surprise me that we are being fitted into lots of different services. There is a particular role for, that's slightly different in cams that I believe is something like an educational mental health practitioner. So I think it's the same sort of thing, but actually where our role is specifically for adults and older adults.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 28:10

Thank you. And I was going to say, what does an average day look like? But I think you've really nicely guided us through that. And I know this isn't specifically a progression route for people going on to being an educational psychologist or a clinical psychologist or a counselling psychologist, but it makes me think that actually this would've been for me, I'm excited. I would've liked to have done this role. This would've been for me even better experience, even better experience than an assistant psychologist because getting hands-on experience for how to do these things, why they matter, which things are going to work better. Mingling in your theory, practise links and getting the bums on seat experience of putting that into practise. I guess the bit that you're not getting, which I did get as an assistant is the supervision from a qualified psychologist. So if someone is thinking this might make a really good next step, then yes, I believe personally it really, really will. But unless you happen to be supervised by a clinical psychologist, even if you were supervised by a clinical psychologist, I think you're being supervised as a mental health and wellbeing practitioner, not as an assistant psychologist. And for me they are a little bit different because the job roles should be different. But for me it sounds really exciting and a really great way of skilling people up to either do this role for the foreseeable or to think about future roles.

Harriet Barnes (: 29:46

Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things there definitely it's you learn a lot about the really key core fundamental skills and you do access some formal training, which I know sometimes in some AP roles might be missing. I now have a qualification that's formally recognised. Currently we're not registered, but there is a discussion about us becoming a registered profession. And that's something to consider when you think about the role. There's some real benefits to it being new. I've been able to get involved with lots of things like service evaluation that I think if the role that had existed for a long time, I wouldn't be able to because all already been done or setting up the peer support. But there are, so what comes with that is a lot of discussion about what is the role, where does it fit? Having to perhaps wait to hear what the progression route is or maybe wait for the registration process, which all of it will definitely will come, but you just have to be patient.

(: 30:45

And I viewed it as a positive that I could be there at the beginning to have those maybe wherever possible, inform those decisions. Definitely I've been really lucky that my supervisor is a qualified psychologist and is really supportive with my supervision in that she lets me take it wherever I need to take it. And in terms of discussing the skills or the areas that I want to go in. So I suppose maybe that could be a question if it's something people are thinking of, it could be a question in the interview that people might like to ask. And alongside that, I think a question about how people see the service, see the role fitting into the service could be really helpful. Acknowledging that it is still a brand new role. I think run to about cohort five of trainees will be the next one, but there is still lots of things happening.

(: 31:35

So that can be a really good thing to acknowledge in an interview that it's a new role and you're interested to see how they're fitting it in. And you could, if you're feeling particularly confident, ask about community transformation and where they are in terms of that if it's relevant to community adult mental health. And I'm happy to give a very brief over, you mentioned a day in the life. I'm happy to give a very brief overview for people who might want to know about that. So because of the training that we have in an average day, we might be involved or in my average day, which will look different because I'm in CMHT to maybe somebody else, but we'd have a huddle where we join together and talk about our contacts and anyone we've got concerns, which is lots of skills there you can develop.

(: 32:17

There's then formulations that I attend that are really helpful to see how a multidisciplinary team works and where my interventions fit. It might be, it's not something I do so much, but it's absolutely something that could be part of the role. Something called phase one, so where you assess somebody, which will look different in different services, but for us it's an extended period of time gathering information for the five Ps formulation. So getting a really good understanding of people's experience and what's happened to them and how they've arrived, where they have their protective factors and goal setting, what do they want to achieve, what do they want to work on? And that's so important. That's a question that's asked all the time in formulation. What does somebody actually want? What's their focus? How can we help them achieve what they want, not what we think they need but what they actually want.

(: 33:07

And then the main body of my role is offering those low level evidence-based, psychologically informed interventions, which is all of it's great. I genuinely really enjoy all of it, but that feels like the real work working one-to-one with people and again, in a smaller scale, using exactly those same skills. So having a smaller assessment with them that's focused on whichever intervention they might be using, almost like a mini formulation, working alongside them to help them again to make shared decision making. I'm not telling you I'm going to do this to you, we're doing it together and then working through. So all of our interventions are described as guided. So in theory they could be completed independently, you could give someone a leaflet and they could do it, but of course having that support, gentle accountability, a safe space to share is a really important part of the process as well.

(: 34:06

And then supervision. Supervision and then anything. My advice, especially because it's a new role and for me, I was so new to mental health, I just tried to get involved in absolutely anything I could. So if there was a meeting going on, especially when I was in training because they say just find out what's going on. So if there's a meeting going on, I'd join it. If there was a free bit of training with a space on it, I would join it knowing that I might not always be able to use it in my role, but I always got something out of it and just asking people, what do you do? Who are you? How does that fit? Was really, really useful too.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 34:37

I do, I'm very much getting the impression that the role of mental health wellbeing practitioner and you specifically become the linchpin of the service because you have got your fingers in all the pies, you are in all the meetings and it very much feels like when I was an assistant it would blow last Marianne, Marianne will know and I feel like that's what they say about you Harriet. Like Harriet will know, she'll know how to do it, she'll know where it is, she'll know, she'll know what's going on and why we're doing that and what options are. And I guess you'll also know a lot about community interventions as well. And something I only stumbled across yesterday was something called Andy's Man Club. Is that something you've heard

Harriet Barnes (: 35:19

Of? Yeah, so interestingly, whilst my caseload was building, moving from trainee to qualified qualifi, I did look for a few other things I could do just to help the service. And one of them was that we had a really good understanding of third sector support, but make some connections with those groups and get to inform formulations. And one that we use a lot is Andy's man shed as a really, a very positive service that we use. Definitely a third sector awareness is really, really key. And actually acknowledging, and again maybe in your interview or thinking about if the role, how you want to develop it, acknowledging that you need to know about third sector stuff and joint working is really, really helpful. But yeah, we regularly refer to people at the charity sector, community sector as to either to supplement or maybe after discharge to support that transition back into the community. Definitely

Dr Marianne Trent (: 36:25

So important. I love that you've been able to give our audience tips for their interviews as well. It's so important. I know that sometimes the episodes where we are looking at career changes have been really, really popular. What's it like when we've got all this internal chatter about what will people say when I say I want to leave? Or will they think I'm ungrateful for leaving this career? I get holidays, I get Easter, I get summer off. What's it like when you suddenly realise actually I might want to leave this career I'm in and do something different?

Harriet Barnes (: 37:00

Oh well it took me absolutely ages, which I wouldn't necessarily advise. I loved teaching, I loved everything about it. I loved where I worked, but it was time for me to try something different. I like to try and if I have something, I like to try and improve it. And teaching allowed me to do that. I taught the same thing every year. I could change what I was, I could tweak and change things and you can do the same with the interventions you're delivering a sleep intervention thing, well that didn't quite work next time I'll do it like this. So I still get that, but I've kind of got to a point where it was really just sort of neatening things up. You can always improve in every area, but I did it really slowly. So I went down to three days a week and two days working at the charity and then I think I went down to one and a half days teaching and the charity work and some of the university lecturing and finally I think I was on about one day when I left.

(: 37:56

So I really dragged it out because I've been there for years and knew everybody. And what was really lovely is there were two trainee teachers that myself and another colleague who left at the same time had trained and had seen come up. So as we were kind of reducing our hours, they were taking them on and they've both really blossomed to keep in touch with them in their careers and they're doing really well and working nicely as a unit. So I guess if there are worries about, if you are worrying about maybe leaving because of those pressures about what will people think or how will the team feel me leaving somebody else to start their career in that area and have another person in the world who's got psychological knowledge and teaching knowledge, which was something that I really appreciated and has been really valuable to me. So it was a real positive,

Dr Marianne Trent (: 38:45

Such an important reframe. And I dunno if you watch friends, but it reminds me of when Phoebe has moved out of Monica's but not told her. And it feels like that's what you did there. Where's Harriet? She's moved out, she's left. Did you notice she's been doing it bit by bit incrementally, but that really made me smile as an idea. You did the transition in a slow gradual way and it was just right for you, which I love. Before we finish, have you got any advice for kind of reducing burnout in this mental health sphere that we find ourselves working in?

Harriet Barnes (: 39:24

I feel really lucky because I'm quite new to mental health that everything feels very fresh and as well as having a really supportive team, we have lots of different reflective things and supportive things set up, which I access and I'm really encouraged and to support by the team. So I guess one of my piece of advice would be after having said I was there for 15 years and took years to gradually leave, what I would say now is if you're in a team that don't offer you those things or that support, then they're not the right team for you. And that's a reflection on the team and not on you, which isn't my experience, but I can understand how it could be in others. And I guess maybe the thing that I really enjoy is remaining is being curious and I'm lucky right at the start, so literally everything is new to me, so everything is interesting, but just looking up, putting things fresh and new, making time very even if it's briefly just to listen to kind of new ideas or new perspectives.

(: 40:25

And that's where I stumbled across your podcast that it has little snapshots of different careers or I can remember one of your podcasts that was really interesting that I really enjoyed was around there was somebody talking about a culture and their religion and how that informed their experiences and their practises. And as I worked with asylum seekers who were majority Muslim, that was really interesting and an area that I had a passion for and it was really nice to see those brought together. And when you mentioned about third sector after listening to one of your podcasts about you had somebody talking about green spaces and nature, that really highlighted to me the importance of that and how lovely that was. So I embedded into looking for my third sector people I looked for people had a focus on, there were people with gardening and nature as well. So definitely anything where you can learn other people's perspectives can feel so it's like a changes as good as a rest. It can feel really refreshing to hear those different ideas and perspectives any way you can find them.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 41:30

Alright, you're trying to make me cry. I didn't realise I was going to be in there as an anti burnout tip, but that's honestly so lovely that I've had this idea to do a podcast series, like a podcast and that I've had this idea to talk to certain experts and approach them about coming on and that it genuinely is leading to clinical shifts for people that I will never meet that will be benefiting because of the information that I've made available to clinicians. Just get me a bit teary, I won't lie. This is why I do what I do. People are like, why do you do this? Because it costs you money. You don't make any money from it. I'm like, because I passionately believe in easing the distress of others but also giving great evidence-based practise for clinicians who I'll never meet who then get to go off and make people's lives better or make their own lives better or both. That's why I do it and thank you so much for saying that because incredible. Thank you.

Harriet Barnes (: 42:30

You're welcome. And I think as well, I know that you offer the aspiring psychologist the membership, and I do wonder if that would allow the same thing. You have the weekly lectures with people with different perspective, so some of that of course would be career development, but other elements would just be, oh gosh, yeah, I never thought about that connection. It's amazing how many connections you can make. So yeah, definitely lots of really helpful things connected to you.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 42:58

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I will just briefly mention there's books available as well if anyone wants to check those out. Thank you so much for approaching me about this podcast episode for helping us learn about the mental health and wellbeing practitioner. Do you get to graduate? Do you get another little hat and a robe thingummajig? Is

Harriet Barnes (: 43:16

That Yeah, there is a graduation service. Yes, definitely. Which is very nice. After all that hard work, like you say, get to do that little throwing the hat and yay.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 43:28

So does it last a year? It sounds like it's kind of rolling. There's multiple starts in the calendar year, but the whole process lasts a year.

Harriet Barnes (: 43:37

Yeah, so the recruitment, the start of the courses and I think it's universal, not just our trust is November and March, so now would probably be quite a good time. People will be advertising for trainees. The training is a year and then after the year, one year is a band four after the year of training and then you go into Band five into a permanent post, which is very nice.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 44:01

I love it. Thank you so much. This honestly would've been a bit of me. This would've been amazing, I think, how incredible that we've got these new and diverse mental health practitioner roles for people to be able to do, but also people to be able to benefit from. Thank you so much for speaking to us.

Harriet Barnes (: 44:19

Thank you ever so much for having me.

Dr Marianne Trent (: 44:22

You are so welcome. Oh, how lovely to have met Harriet and to be guided through the process with such expert care and attention and yeah, I feel like it was such a great chat and I think this would've been something that I would've really liked myself if it had been around an earlier stage of my career. What do you think? What does this sound like to you? Is this something you would be interested in exploring? I would love to know what you think to come along to the Aspiring Psychologist community on Facebook where you can let me know. You can also start a chat with me on socials about it. Any of my socials, I am Dr. Marianne Tre. If you would like to read the stories of Aspiring Psychologist, please do check out the Aspiring Psychologist collective book. And there's also experiences of clinical health counselling psychologists, educational psychologists in the Clinical Psychologist Collective book.

(: 45:30

I just want to thank you for your time in listening to or watching this episode. I know your time is precious and I'm just really grateful that you trust in me to help you learn more about the field of psychology. Please do take a moment to rate and review. Please do subscribe to the channel. I will look forward to bringing you the next episode of the podcast, which will be released as an MP three on Monday mornings at 6:00 AM and is usually available on YouTube across the weekend before it's launched as an MP three. Thank you so much. Take good care of yourselves. Be kind and I'll see you very soon.

Jingle Guy (: 46:11

If you psychologist, then podcast.