Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners (CWP) assess children and young people’s mental health needs ensuring they gain access to appropriate support services.
Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners (CWPs) offer a range of interventions that are based on cognitive behavioural therapy and guided self-help. They aim to help children and young people in the self-management of their recovery.
You need to complete a year-long training programme. To access the training, you will need to apply for a position as a trainee CWP in a children and young people’s mental health service.
During your training you will be employed by a local organisation and spend the majority of your time in the service working with children and young people. You will gain a range of experience and work closely with a trained supervisor to help you engage in self-reflection, seek and respond to feedback, and develop your professional knowledge and skills.
CWP training is open to people with a range of experience. The programme is open to anyone, with or without a degree, who has experience of working with children and young people to support their mental health. You do not need a degree to apply for the programme, but you’ll need to show that you are able to study at degree level.
- Providing interventions on a one-to-one basis or in groups in person, via telephone or online
- Working alongside other clinicians delivering evidence-based psychological therapies in a variety of settings including GP practices, healthcare centres and other community venues
- Building relationships with other services to ensure children and young people can be referred to the services that best meet their needs
- Managing referrals and signposting to other other healthcare professionals, employment and education advisers, and support staff
- To support your practice and wellbeing as a practitioner, you will be provided with regular supervision
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I am a Children and Young Person’s Wellbeing Practitioner (CYWP) working within the core team at CAMHS. My role at CAMHS involves short term pieces of work with children, young people and their families who are struggling with low mood, anxiety, phobias or emotional dysregulation by using evidenced based therapeutic interventions based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) principles.
I worked for CAMHS for 6 years prior to my training to be a CYWP as a medical secretary working under a Consultant Psychiatrist. I always found myself really interested in mental health and have always wanted to work with children. I was proud of the work my colleagues did and wanted to be a part of helping change young people and their families’ lives.
There is no typical day as a CYWP! I work in a team of 2 CYWP’s and our days can vary. Most of the time we can be found in one to one appointments with our young people however we also do groups and work directly with parents. We are also required to have fortnightly case management supervision to discuss our cases and monthly clinical skills supervision to continue our learning and refine our skills. I am also very interested in creative work and practice therefore try my best to create resources and activities which are personal to the young people I work with.
As a CYWP you have to be registered with a professional body and this involves completing CPD to make sure you are up to date on skills and knowledge and can evidence work you have been doing is in line with the requirements.
At CAMHS we meet every week for a practitioner team meeting where we will share research, skills or discuss certain aspects of working in mental health. We sometimes also have guest speakers who will come and train us on certain skills or tell us about their service.
The most rewarding parts of my job are seeing the young people I work with flourishing in things they previously struggled to do and their excitement to share things they have been able to experience. I feel really proud of my young people, and this is definitely the most rewarding part of working for CAMHS.
I think the ability to change and adapt yourself to be personable to any young people or their families. Working with children involves working with their families as well which can sometimes be tricky. It’s helpful to be able to hear everyone but keep the child’s voice in mind. Empathy and compassion is also a very valuable quality to have in this role as it helps the practitioner understand from others perspectives and think about the right support needed.
Try and get some experience in the mental health field before applying – I worked at CAMHS in an admin capacity for 6 years and also did voluntary work for Shout which is a crisis helpline and this allowed me to gain lots of skills in de-escalation and assessing for risk. The training for Shout is fantastic and I think the knowledge I learnt whilst training and volunteering was invaluable.
My background is not typical of my role. I have had many jobs working with children throughout my life and I think this is something which has founded my love of working with children and young people. I then did an Art degree at university and then worked as a secretary afterwards which brought me to working at CAMHS. I worked extremely hard throughout the years to get the knowledge of how a CAMHS service was run and what I would need to do to progress in my career to become a CYWP.
To become a CYWP you do not need necessarily need to have a degree (or even one which relates to mental health etc) and it is important you can evidence your experience working with children and young people and your knowledge of mental health and services.
Being a CYWP involves going back to university along side working (working 3 days a week and training 2 days a week) so it is important to be in a place in life where you are able to balance this.
I am very new to being qualified in my role so I haven’t noticed technology impacting my treatments. I think there are pros and cons to technology and it has been useful for young people to choose how they would like to be seen for interventions e.g. online appointments.
It’s really easy in this role to feel like you have imposter syndrome and that you don’t know what you’re doing at times however knowing that someone is going home after an appointment feeling listened to, valued and heard is something that will always encourage me to keep at it. The pride I feel after working with someone and seeing the changes they have made is unmatched and makes me excited for my future patients.
I also work with the best group of people who really care about the families they work with and we are all a huge support to each other. I am very proud and grateful to work at CAMHS.
The video below published by the Psychological Professions Network describes the role of a Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner as part of the career map for the psychological professions.
- Association of Child Psychotherapists
- British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies
- NHS Careers – Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner
- NHS Careers – Psychological professions
- NHS England – Future in mind
- NHS funding for psychological professions training programmes
- Pay scales – NHS Employers
- Professional Standards Authority
- The British Psychological Society
