Main area Clinician Grade Band 8a Contract Permanent: 0.8 WTE Hours Part time - 30 hours per week (Wednesday is a core day) Job ref 220-WHT-3029
Employer Whittington Health NHS Trust Employer type NHS Site Islington Social Care, 3 Elwood Street Town London Salary £61,927 - £68,676 pro rata per annum inclusive of HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 11/04/2025 23:59
Specialist Clinical Psychologist/Family Therapist (CLA&Return Home)
Band 8a
This is an exciting opportunity for a clinician with experience of working with Children Looked After (CLA) to join an experienced CAMHS team that is co-located with Children's Social Care. This specialist role will be across two services areas:
* delivering our core clinical model in CLA and Fostering
* supporting reunification of children and young people with their birth families.
The core clinical role has a consultative focus, including offering group and individual consultation to Social Workers. The role will have a small clinical caseload of direct work with CLA, carers and birth parents.
This role has an exciting additional focus on reunification. It will involve both direct and indirect clinical intervention with young people, birth parents and the wider network to support successful reunification.
Our work is framed within a stepped model of care; and is guided by Islington CLA's Practice Models (DDP, Mentalisation, Motivational Practice, Return Home).
We are a dynamic, multidisciplinary team and offer opportunities for continued professional development and reflective practice.
We encourage applications from all sections of the community to develop a team which is more representative of our client groups.
Main duties of the job
* To provide specialist mental health advice and consultation to social workers in the Children Looked After Service to support their practice and management of young people presenting with a range of presentations and needs.
* To attend group supervision, sharing clinical and mental health knowledge and expertise to contribute to case discussion.
* To facilitate consultations with social workers and supervising social workers, to enhance their trauma-informed, relationship-based practice with children and caregivers.
* To provide specialist mental health assessment, formulation and interventions with children, young people and caregivers.
* To provide specialist evidence-based intervention for looked after children and carers, drawing on innovative ways of engagement and intervention.
* To provide specialist evidence-based interventions for birth parents which will aid reunification, including processing of their experiences of having a child removed and relational work to rebuild the parent-child relationship.
* To formulate and devise clinical management plans for a range of specialist psychological interventions; individual, family and group.
* To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, as required.
* To liaise with professionals in health, mental health, education, social care and voluntary sector services, as required.
Person specification
Analysis
* Post-graduate Qualification in: Clinical Psychology, Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
* Registration with relevant professional body: UKCP, HCP, BAP, ACP
* Experience of working with looked after children
* Experience of offering consultation and reflective practice to professionals outside of mental health
* Advanced clinical skills qualifications eg Dyadic Development Psychotherapy/ Mentalisation based approaches
* Discipline specific supervisor training
Skills & Abilities
* Ability and skills to offer consultation to professionals individually and in group
* Ability to work with complex professional networks
* Ability to manage within a busy and challenging context, drawing on trauma informed practice for self-care and to support social care colleagues
* Skills and experience in psychological assessment, formulation and interventions with looked after children
* Skills and experience in assessment and management of mental health risk
* Skills and experience in adhering to clinical governance requirements to a high standard (outcome measuring, record keeping, effective communication)
* Skills and experience in developing and delivering training
* Skills and experience working in social care or other multiagency setting
* Skills and experience working with parental / adult mental health
Knowledge & Experience
* Significant knowledge and experience of clinical work with young people looked after, leaving care and their carers
* Knowledge and experience of attachment based and trauma informed models of clinical practice
* Extensive post qualifying experience working with adolescents and young adults in a Mental Health setting
* Experience of delivering a mental health service in a social care or other multiagency setting.
* Experience working in adult mental health
* Training. familiarisation with Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Motivational Practice and NSPCC Reunification Framework
* Experience of delivering clinical interventions to support reunification of CLA to birth family
SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS
To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
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