Population Mental Health Division – Senior Policy Advisor

If youre motivated by meaningful policy that improves lives this is your opportunity to lead work on population mental health and wellbeing in Scotland.

The Mental Health Directorate has undergone a significant re-design this is to ensure we are better aligned with current priorities and are able to provide an agile response to changing landscapes in the future. The Directorate has three divisions and we are looking for four Senior Policy Advisors to work within the Population Mental Health Division which aims to improve population mental health and wellbeing in Scotland.

Across our Division we are driving forward a range of important programmes of work which contributes to our Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy on areas such as; Suicide Prevention Self Harm Prevention and Children and Young Peoples Support. This work is high profile engaging and offers lots of opportunities for development of policy and stakeholder engagement skills in an area which links across Government . Please note some of the policy topics and issues led on by the Division are sensitive (such as mental distress suicide or trauma) and may not be best suited for everyone.

General (Across all Roles)

• Proactive engagement with key internal stakeholders including regular access to Ministers providing high quality advice;
• Managing relationships with external stakeholders building relationships navigating difficulties and engaging with tact and sensitivity;
• Critical appraisal of policy options ensuring any appraisal is good quality independent free from bias and well informed;
• Deployment of good project management skills to manage progress across policy responsibilities identifying and mitigating risk;
• Corporate activities including supporting Ministers PQs FOIs and MiCases;
• Finance oversight of budgets associated with policy responsibilities which may include financial allocations to NHS Boards grants to third sector partners and regular financial reporting to relevant teams.

Self-Harm and Distress Interventions Senior Policy Advisor

• Delivery of the Self-Harm Strategy and Action Plan with a specific focus on statutory services children/young people and equalities groups including engagement with a variety of stakeholders;
• Undertake forward planning for the next iteration of the Action Plan;
• Lead on monitoring and evaluation of the Self-Harm Action Plan (including commissioning where appropriate);
• Oversight of the self-harm aspects of the Online Safety Act;
• Lead on the strategic embedding of the Distress Brief Interventions Programme and associated work on non-clinical interventions;
• Work with local areas around resource/capacity issues and support Central Team in developing mechanisms for sustaining DBI locally.

Preventing Poor Mental Health and Suicide Senior Policy Advisor

• Delivery of our new three year Suicide Prevention Action Plan working with policy teams and Suicide Prevention Scotland to scope and drive forward key national actions on suicide prevention (to be published January 26);
• Lead on specific aspects of cross government work to embed suicide prevention in key areas of policy and delivery which impact suicide risk and poor mental health as part of our whole of government approach to suicide prevention;
• Strengthen relationships with key partners as an active part of Suicide Prevention Scotland (our partnership delivery model) and with COSLA as joint owners of our Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan.

Children and Young Peoples Mental Health Senior Policy Advisor

• Support the development of policy for children & young peoples mental wellbeing. This includes using considerable autonomy to take the lead on work to develop new policy options regarding factors which can lead to lower mental wellbeing such asscreen time social media body image and disrupted sleep;
• Lead on secretariat function and policy lead for the Child and Family Mental Health Joint Strategic Board and its associated Implementation Groups;
• Lead on relationships and fund management with key external organisations such as Scottish Youth Parliament Young Scot and Inspiring Scotland;
• Work flexibly with the teams other B3 to monitor and support work ongoing across the Directorate relating to children and young peoples mental health;
• Work with colleagues across the SG to support mental health in education.

Mental Health Strategy and Governance Senior Policy Advisor

• Work with colleagues across the Directorate to help coordinate the next Mental Health and Wellbeing Delivery Plan in 2026;
• Provide secretariat arrangements for the Mental Health Strategy Leadership Board Executive Group and Stakeholder Forum;
• Manage key relationships with stakeholders and bodies such as COSLA;
• Provide cross-Directorate leadership support for risk registers and commissions including FMQ briefs and PfG.

For more information on this role or any other please contact Shannon ORourke or Lewis McGarry

• Policy Context and Purpose Practitioner level

Understand the policy process. Develop expertise within the policy area to operate credibly and effectively. Embed cross-cutting policy objectives and responsibilities.

You can find out more about the skills required here: Policy Profession Standards Annex

• Experience of advising and supporting senior officials and/or Ministers as well as working with a range of external stakeholders

• Making effective decisions Level 3
• Seeing the bigger picture Level 3
• Communicating and influencing Level 3 (this criteria will only be assessed at interview not at sift)

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