Job Description

‘Youth Aware of Mental Health’ (YAM) is a universal mental health promotion programme for youth, developed by researchers in public mental health and psychiatry from the world-leading Karolinska Institute and Columbia University. This is an exciting opportunity to be upskilled in the delivery of YAM by a leading academic at one of the world's foremost medical universities.

Youth Aware of Mental Health Instructor (YAM Instructor)

Job Description

Pay Rate: £639.50 per five-session course (includes preparation, delivery and debrief time; all travel expenses covered). Post-holders will be expected to deliver a minimum of three courses.

Payment will also be provided for the compulsory training and assessment week: £808 (plus accommodation and expenses) plus training practice in schools (£161 for one day).

Location

Delivery will take place in secondary schools across one or more of the following areas:

• Liverpool
• Leeds/Sheffield
• Middlesbrough
• Birmingham
• Exeter

• Southampton
• Kent
• Surrey
• London
• Herts/Essex

Working hours

Zero hours contract. Post-holders will be required to deliver a minimum of three courses (a total of 15 one-hour sessions) and each course runs over five consecutive weeks. In addition, one week of training and one training practice day in a school will be required.

Term of contract: Fixed-term, seven months (October 2022 to April 2023)

Purpose of the post

The YAM Instructor will lead on delivering the mental health promotion and suicide prevention intervention, ‘Youth Aware of Mental Health’ (YAM), to Year 9 secondary school pupils.

Delivering the YAM programme will involve approaching mental health topics such as stress, crisis, and depression, and exploring ways of supporting young people to reflect on and problem-solve emotionally charged situations and dilemmas. YAM sets the tone for an open and diverse conversation about mental health, and the YAM Instructors are instrumental to this. Clinical experience is not required for the role; more important is the YAM Instructor’s ability to build alliances and reciprocal relationships with a diverse range of young people.

YAM Instructors will deliver the YAM intervention in secondary school classrooms, assisted by YAM Assistants. YAM Instructors and YAM Assistants will be paired together so that the same Instructor-Assistant pair deliver the sessions to up to three classes in the same school, each week for five consecutive weeks in order to deliver a full course of YAM. Each YAM Instructor will need to provide availability to deliver a minimum of three full courses of YAM (15 one-hour sessions across five consecutive weeks). These may be across one or more schools and may all be delivered in the same five-week period or split across two different half-terms, depending on the needs of the schools and the availability of the post-holders.

Duties and responsibilities

• Attend a five-day training course delivered by fully certified YAM Trainers in London in October 2022;
• Be available to lead on delivering YAM sessions to Year 9 pupil groups in secondary schools for at least one day per week for five consecutive weeks between January 2023 and April 2023;
• Deliver YAM sessions plus allow time for preparation beforehand and debrief after each session, approximately three hours in total;
• Be willing to travel up to two hours each way to reach schools. All reasonable travel costs will be covered by the Centre in line with the expenses policy;
• Create, model, and maintain a safe space for each YAM session;
• Facilitate role plays, which are a core part of the YAM programme for allowing young people to explore other’s perspectives and experience of mental health and to integrate both emotional and cognitive learning;
• Facilitate conversations between pupils on mental health topics and emotionally charged dilemmas;
• Observe and listen to pupils’ participation and input, and summarise to feedback to them;
• Raise safeguarding concerns with the safeguarding leads of the school and the Centre, and follow the safeguarding procedures of both the school and the Centre;
• Report adverse events in accordance with the AWARE Trial’s procedures;
• Communicate and collaborate with the YAM Assistant to find the best way to work together;
• Act as a source of support and advice for the YAM Assistant through preparing and debriefing together;
• Complete a research implementation survey for each pupil group;
• Check and respond to Centre emails in a frequent (at least once weekly) and timely manner;
• Complete mandatory YAM Instructor training and practice, and pass the assessment;
• Agree to and follow the advice outlined in Centre’s Guidance Document for YAM Instructors;
• Act as an ambassador for the Centre and behave accordingly in schools, including behaving in line with the school’s ethos, culture and dress code, and being respectful and courteous to school staff;
• Maintain an awareness of and actively follow and promote the Centre’s policies, including Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety, Safeguarding and Information Governance;
• Complete all Centre mandatory training, including but not limited to Safeguarding, Health and Safety, Equal Opportunities and Information Governance, within the required timescales (approximately five hours of training time – this will be paid for);
• The welfare of the children, young people and vulnerable adults who come into contact with our services either directly or indirectly is paramount and all staff have a responsibility to ensure that best practice is followed, including compliance with statutory requirements.

To be noted

The post-holder will be required to have a DBS disclosure which the Centre will apply for.