Are you a qualified and passionate social worker looking to make a meaningful impact in community mental health? East London NHS Foundation Trust is seeking a Community Mental Health Social Worker to join our dedicated team in East London. This is an outstanding opportunity to support individuals, families, and local communities while advancing your career in a professional and supportive NHS environment.
The ideal candidate will hold an appropriate social work qualification, be registered with Social Work England, and have degree-level education. Exceptional communication skills are essential, enabling you to liaise effectively with service users and carers, colleagues, multidisciplinary teams, partner organisations, and local communities—both verbally and in writing.
This role also provides Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) support, making it accessible to eligible international candidates who wish to work in the UK. By joining East London NHS Foundation Trust, you will play a key role in delivering person-centred mental health services, contributing to positive outcomes for service users while developing your own expertise and career in social work.
Take the next step in your social work career and apply today to become a valued Community Mental Health Social Worker in East London.
Position: Community Mental Health Social Worker
Salary: £38,682 – £46,580 per year
Job Type: Full Time
Location: Bedford
Job summary
Bedford CMHT provides compassionate person-centred interventions to people experiencing mental ill-health inBedford.
The team is a multi-disciplinary team, with a strong social care presence and ethos.
You will be given expert support and advice from the teams Senior Social Workers ensuring that bespoke professional supervision is readily available for all our social workers.
ELFT has a dedicated Social Care Lead locally in Bedford. The Social Care Lead offers regular reflective practice sessions, bespoke advice and CPD opportunities.
The excellent work of the Social Work Learning and Development Project Lead ensures that continuous learning is at the heart of Social Work in Bedfordshire.
The Trust offers an established ASYE programme for newly qualified social workers. CPD pathways beyond the ASYE include AMHP/Leadership Academy/AMCP/Practice Educator/ASYE Assessor training structures. Bespoke training opportunities are available as part of your yearly appraisal.
In short; now is a good time to be working as a social worker for ELFT in Central Bedfordshire!
Main duties of the job
- We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated Social Worker to work as part of our team. You will be registered with Social Work England and ideally have one year of post qualifying experience in a relevant health or social care setting; however with our new ASYE programme we would be happy to work with a newly qualified social worker who is able to demonstrate how their pre-qualifying experience and value base would benefit our team.
- As a Social Worker, you will work as a member of the multi-disciplinary team, providing high quality social care services to adults experiencing mental ill-health. The core functions of the role will be to provide assessment, care planning and coordination of care from a social perspective to adults accessing the service.
- You will hold a caseload of adults experiencing a wide range of mental health and social care needs. You will ensure that you maintain constant reflection and development of your practice and will ensure your continuing professional development in line with the standards set out by the professional regulator, Social Work England..
About us
We have Social Workers who are also Practice Educators and ASYE assessors and are currently promoting this training. ELFT are currently part of a pilot programme for ASYE training of newly qualified social workers. ELFT and Bedford Council offer training opportunities to support Social Workers to maintain their professional registration with Social Work England. We believe the natural progression for a Social Worker within Mental Health Services is to strive towards completing their Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) training and this is something that we will expect and you will be supported to do.
We are proud to work with the diverse communities of Bedfordshire and want our workforce to reflect this diversity, which we believe is beneficial for our employees, the organisation and the communities we serve. It is an exciting time to be joining Mental Health Services as a Social Worker in ELFT and the Social Care Management team are committed to supporting your continued development
Job responsibilities
- In the role, you will liaise with acute inpatient units, the Crisis Team, Primary Care services, the Voluntary and Private Sector and contribute to providing a recovery focused model of care.
- You will play an active role in the discharge of our service users from hospital and will commission health and social care services as required.Partnership working is a key component of this post and you will need to be innovative in ensuring that there is a range of appropriate services locally to support individual recovery journeys.
Person Specification
Education/Qualification/Training
Essential
- An appropriate social work qualification
- Registration with Social Work England
- Education to degree level
- Master’s degree or equivalent post-qualifying training
- Approved Mental Health Professional training and qualification (or prepared to undertake training within a year of appointment to role)
Desirable
- Relevant post-qualifying training for social workers
- Other relevant post-qualification training (e.g. CBT, family therapy)
- Best Interest Assessor training
Experience
Essential
- Extensive knowledge of legislation, statutory guidance, theory, and policy in relation to adult and children’s social care
- Experience of undertaking assessment focused on personalisation, choice and control, and care planning
- Understanding of and experience of use of personal budgets and direct payments
- Evidence of multidisciplinary and collaborative working
- Evidence of partnership working with service users and carers, demonstrating dignity and respect, particularly in very challenging situations
Knowledge and Skills
Essential
- Excellent ability to communicate with a wide range of stakeholders, including service users and carers, other professionals and colleagues, members of other organisations and locally communities – verbally and in writing
- Evidence of successful management of challenging meetings
- Experience of using electronic record systems and ability to produce accurate, appropriate, and timely reports
- Experience of undertaking small scale audits and surveys
- Understanding of basic research methods
- Demonstrable ability to working sensitively with diverse needs and environments
- Commitment to anti-discriminatory practice
Desirable
- Ability to manage highly sensitive information
Other
Essential
- Ability to visit and attend meetings at a variety of locations and environments
- Experience of using a computer (PC literate to ECDL standard)
- Car driver (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010 which prevents you from driving)
- Ability to meet deadlines and respond to crises as appropriate
- Flexibility and ability to respond to a variety of tasks and to prioritise own workload
- Ability to manage others and convey information which may be contentious sensitively so that it achieves required improvements and outcomes
- Ability to deal with distressing and sometimes aggressive behaviour of service users and carers.
- Experience of working in an integrated health and social care environment
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Certificate of Sponsorship
Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).
From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Application Process
To apply for this role, PLEASE VISIT THE NHS WEBSITE
Application Deadline
October 10th 2025