Applications are invited for a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist to join a lively and friendly multi-disciplinary CAMHS team. The service is situated in the London Borough of Bexley, one of the three boroughs served by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust. This is located in a recently refurbished building at Park Crescent, Erith, which lies on the border of London and Kent with good transport links, including regular trains from and a nearby Crossrail link from Central London.
Bexley CAMHS service is being redesigned according to the THRIVE framework, and this post will be based in the Getting More Help Quadrant and will involve work with a range of young people with complex and enduring mental health problems up to 18. We currently have a vacancy for a Child Psychotherapist to work with a range of CYP from 0-18, including LAC and adopted young people and Under 5s. There are also opportunities for consultations and the development of specialisms in work with schools, local authorities, carers and families.
The post is open to a newly qualified child psychotherapist or those due to qualify summer 2025, who are members of the ACP, with experience in child mental health in a multidisciplinary context. The Child Psychotherapy discipline is well established and valued across the Trust with a strong clinical presence in most of the different teams across Oxleas and within Bexley CAMHS.
Main duties of the job
The successful applicant will offer brief, medium, and long-term treatments (including individual, parent-child, group, and parent work) as well as specialist state of mind assessments. They will also undertake initial assessments, case management work, and psychoanalytically informed brief psychological interventions and consultations where indicated.
The position provides an excellent opportunity for a child psychotherapist to consolidate training and/or post-qualifying experience within a supportive and stimulating environment. Regular clinical supervision will be provided to enhance and maintain the Child Psychotherapist's core psychoanalytic skills. There are opportunities within the team and service for innovative work, and we are keen to enable clinicians to develop job plans to encourage the development of skills and interests. The Child Psychotherapy discipline promotes wider psychoanalytic thinking through a monthly psychoanalytic journal club, a monthly clinical forum and business meeting, termly trust-wide psychotherapy away days, and an annual Oxleas Child Psychotherapy conference. We also encourage access to wider CPD opportunities as well as maintaining links with the ACP. All clinicians are encouraged and have opportunities to pursue further training to offer additional interventions such as EMDR, IPT, and VIG to meet the needs of our clients.
Job responsibilities
Key Tasks and Responsibilities
* To provide efficient, effective, comprehensive, and highly specialist child and adolescent psychoanalytical psychotherapy assessment and treatment for adolescents with severe, highly complex, and persistent mental health problems, their carers/parents, and families.
* To provide highly specialist supervision and consultation for multi-disciplinary staff within Bromley CAMHS and to staff of related agencies (health, education, social care, voluntary sector, and youth criminal justice system).
* To undertake clinical audit, research, and evaluation and to contribute to the development of child psychotherapy as required.
* To work autonomously within the overall framework of CAMHS and trust policies and procedures.
* To participate in the Directorate-wide CPD programme for Child Psychotherapists and attend monthly Child Psychotherapy Directorate meetings.
Clinical Responsibilities:
* To provide highly specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapy assessment for adolescents with severe, highly complex, and persistent mental health problems, who are at risk of requiring Tier 4 in-patient care and to make decisions about treatment options taking into account relevant evidence-based research, theory, practice, and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes which have shaped the child/adolescent, their parents/carers, and family.
* To provide highly specialist brief, medium, or long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy for adolescents with severe, complex, and persistent mental health problems. Often these are young people who have not responded to other forms of specialist treatment and who, it is recognized, need a more intensive and in-depth therapy to reach their deep-rooted mental health difficulties.
* To provide in-depth risk assessments of young people who are a risk to themselves and/or others and to be able to formulate short-term crisis planning, (which may involve some outreach working), in order to provide support that will enable the young person to engage with ongoing treatment at a later stage, supported by proactive team discussion and support as well as supervision.
* To provide, as required, highly specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment for adolescents and parents/carers who may be vulnerable and may have mental health problems.
* To contribute, as required, to the process of care planning for young people referred to the Adolescent Team and to manage a complex caseload as care coordinator working within a multi-disciplinary team which includes: psychiatry, psychology, child psychotherapy, nursing, family therapy, social work, and occupational therapy.
* To monitor clinical progress through regular reviews of psychotherapy treatment.
* To deliver, as required, highly specialist psychotherapeutic assessment and psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic treatment for families who are hard to engage and who may be highly dysfunctional with complex and persistent problems.
* To provide highly specialist assessment reports for Social Care and Court where appropriate.
* To participate and collaborate with other team members to provide specialist clinical services as required e.g., court assessments, parenting assessments, specialist emotional state and cognitive assessments, specialist group work, and assessment of trauma and depression.
* To participate in regular CPA reviews and ongoing discussion of cases in treatment with other members of the multi-disciplinary team and where appropriate, coordinate and organize network meetings with professionals from other agencies.
* To be able to engage and work with adolescents while drawing upon a range of theoretical and practical knowledge acquired over a significant period of time (e.g., developments in psychoanalysis, child and adolescent development, attachment theory, neuro-biology, systems theory, adult psychopathology, mentalization-based theory and thinking).
* To exercise autonomous professional responsibility based on the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics of the Association of Child Psychotherapists.
Monitoring and Evaluation of Risk
* To be responsible for working within the appropriate Safeguarding, Deliberate Self Harm, Substance Misuse guidelines, for own cases and the provision of appropriate advice in supervision and consultation. This includes reporting to and liaising appropriately with the multi-disciplinary service and external agency staff (e.g., CAMHS colleagues, and those in education, adult mental health and primary health, hospital staff, the Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, the named Safeguarding worker, the Substance Misuse Nurse, and Social Care staff).
* To be responsible for continually monitoring and evaluating risk to/from children and young people in own caseload and during supervision/consultation discussions, which may be due to Safeguarding concerns, Deliberate Self Harm, or other risky behaviour (e.g., running away, substance misuse, causing harm to others, and disturbance in very young children where parenting issues may constitute a risk to the young person).
Consultation
* To provide highly specialist advice, guidance, and consultation to professional colleagues (within CAMHS and related external agencies, e.g., social workers, foster carers, educational staff, Youth Justice Service, the police, the courts, and solicitors, and voluntary sector workers in the community) who work with adolescents with severe and complex mental health problems.
* To provide, as required, highly specialist advice, guidance, and consultation to adults involved with those young people who are within the Social Care system, e.g., adoptive parents, foster carers, social workers.
* To contribute directly and indirectly to a specialist psychoanalytically informed understanding to the client group across all settings and including their parents/carers and families.
Research
* To undertake audits as appropriate within the Specialist CAMHS Service in accordance with clinical governance.
* To undertake research as appropriate within the service, Directorate, and the discipline of Psychoanalytic Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
* To utilize theory, literature, and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other members of the service, Directorate, and the Trust and the discipline of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
Communication
To maintain effective communication with all partner agencies involved in a child/adolescent's care, including, as required, Social Care.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Full member of Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) or trainee due to qualify and register in 2023
* Relevant honours degree or recognized equivalent
* Doctorate Level ACP accredited training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy or trainee due to qualify and register in 2023
* Other related professional qualifications
Experience
* Experience of relevant patient groups presenting high levels of complexity and difficulty
* Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency, multicultural context
* Experience of working with families, including foster and adoptive families, parents, carers, and networks
* Experience of consulting to other professionals in relation to the emotional needs of children and adolescents
Skills, Abilities and Knowledge
* Good knowledge of relevant theories, practices, and research in the field of child and adolescent development and psychotherapy
* Working knowledge of adult mental health difficulties
* Evidence of continuous professional development
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.
Erith & District Hospital, Park Crescent
Consultant Child Psychotherapist, Bexley CAMHS
Erith & District Hospital, Park Crescent
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