Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner – Maternity Cover

Role: Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner – Maternity Cover

Location: Bedford College – Cauldwell Street Campus

Salary/Benefits: Salary is between £29,870 and £39,696 per annum (Pro-Rata) DOE and Qualifications, People’s pension, Retail and Leisure Discounts, excellent professional and personal development opportunities, accessing college courses.

Hours/Weeks: 37 hours per week – 40 weeks per year

Contract Type: Fixed Term – Term Time – Contract End Date is 30 October 2026

About the role:

We are currently seeking a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner to join our Student Services department at The Bedford College Group.

As a Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner, you play an important role in the success of our students through:

• Student Support & Wellbeing – Provides trauma-informed, student-centred support through one-to-one and group interventions, promoting mental health, resilience, and engagement in college life.
• Resource & Workshop Delivery – Designs and delivers mental health awareness sessions, tutorials, and accessible resources for students, parents, and carers to support wellbeing both in and outside college.
• Collaboration & Referral – Works closely with internal teams and external services to address SEMH challenges, make referrals, and ensure students’ needs are reflected in college policies and practices
• Monitoring & Reporting – Manages caseloads, tracks intervention impact, maintains confidentiality, and produces data-driven reports to inform service development and student outcomes.
• Compliance & Development – Upholds safeguarding, equality, and health and safety standards, contributes to Student Services, and engages in ongoing professional development to support a whole-college approach to wellbeing.

About you:

• Qualifications & Experience – Holds a relevant graduate-level qualification (e.g. Social Work, Psychology, Mental Health), Level 2 English and Maths, and has at least two years’ experience supporting young people with mental health needs.
• Skills & Service Delivery – Skilled in short- and long-term support, resource development, training delivery, and managing projects with measurable impact in a customer-focused environment.
• Communication & Collaboration – Strong verbal and written communication, confident in building relationships across diverse groups, promoting services, and working both independently and as part of a team.
• Values & Professional Conduct – Works in line with core values (Student Centred, Excellence, Teamwork, etc.), maintains professional boundaries, and promotes the organisation’s reputation with integrity and emotional intelligence.
• Safeguarding & Flexibility – Committed to safeguarding, equality, health and safety, continuous learning, and flexible working across locations and hours, with a proactive approach to personal development.

For a more detailed breakdown of the job role and the requirements, please see the Job Description attached to this vacancy.

Interviews to be held: 04 September 2025

Successful candidates must also be able to demonstrate alignment to our organisationalVISION values:

• Valuing Teamwork – We are one team who by working together can achieve great things, respecting the opinion and valuing the contribution each of us makes.
• Improving Continuously – We challenge ourselves to always do better by trying new things, sharing knowledge, reflecting on practice and learning from others.
• Student Centred – At our heart is always doing what is best for our students. We consider students in all of our decision making to create positive outcomes and memorable experiences for every student.
• Inclusive – We celebrate differences and diversity, recognising that we can learn from each other.
• Open and Caring – We care about the wellbeing of our staff, our students, our community and wider society, creating an environment built on trust where we listen, engage with and support each other.
• Nurturing Education Excellence – We promote educational excellence by delivering programmes that challenge our students to achieve their ambitions.

About The Bedford College Group
The Bedford College Group was formed in 2017 following the merger of Bedford College and Tresham College and is now the largest provider of education in the South East Midlands, with over 15,000 students passing through our doors each year.

Today, the Group is made up of a family of colleges across Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire: Bedford College, Central Bedfordshire College and Tresham College in the towns of Bedford, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Corby, Kettering and Wellingborough; Shuttleworth College, a specialist land-based college; The Bedford Sixth Form, (the only dedicated sixth form in Bedford); The Corby Sixth Form, (opened in September 2023); and the National College for Motorsport alongside Silverstone race circuit. To widen accessibility to education and training, the Group also has community-based Learning Centres in Bedford, Corby and Kettering which offer IT training.

Safeguarding our Students
The Bedford College Group is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. The successful candidate will be subject to thorough vetting process which includes, an enhanced DBS check and satisfactory references.

This post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the Exceptions Order 1975, provides information about which convictions must be declared during job applications and related exceptions and further information about filtering offences can be found in the DBS filtering guide. The Bedford College Group’s policy on Employment of Ex-Offenders is attached to this vacancy.

Candidates who are barred from working with children are reminded it is a criminal offence to apply for this post.

Documents

TBCG Ex-Offenders Policy.pdf

Mental Health and Wellbeing Practitioner.docx