Band 7/8a Developmental Clinical Psychologist CAMHS - North Somerset in Clevedon

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Clinical Psychologist to work across North Somerset CAMHS and the North Somerset Service for Children in Care and Care Leavers in this innovative post. This post offers a development opportunity for those who have significant experience at Band 7 in CAMHS and would like to progress into a new developing area.

The successful candidate will work within the child in care service alongside social workers, foster carers, and other health professionals. This role involves addressing the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children in care, through consultation, training, and direct work, across four days. The remaining day will be based within the Community CAMHS Team, holding a small caseload and supporting the team to deliver effective interventions for children in care.

This role involves delivering clinical expertise within specialist community services, aligned to a defined local care pathway serving a specific population — children who are looked after or under Special Guardianship Orders (SGO), referred by North Somerset CYPS. The role also includes delivering training programmes to foster carers, social workers, and CAMHS clinicians to enhance their understanding of the impact of trauma on children in care.

In addition to core clinical psychology skills, the successful candidate will have experience working with children in care and possess strong knowledge and skills in trauma-informed practices. This post offers a high degree of autonomy, working across both health and social care sectors. The role is based at Weston Town Hall and North Somerset CAMHS Rowan/The Barn in Clevedon.

For any candidates who are interested in this post but do not yet meet the criteria to apply for the 8a post, the service can offer a development opportunity with an entry level at Band 7 progressing to band 8a on successful completion of a development plan.

Main duties of the job include:

• To work alongside social workers and family support workers to provide support to foster carers, children in care, and their families.
• To provide clinical consultation to social workers and the Team Around the Child.
• To contribute to and inform the child or young person’s care plan.
• To support the delivery of therapeutic work for looked-after children.
• To provide assessments and recommendations for children in care and their families.
• To act as a liaison between CAMHS and Children’s Social Care.
• To have oversight of SDQ results and recommend appropriate support or signposting.
• To contribute to service development around the local mental health and wellbeing offer for looked-after children.
• To record clinical activity on the Children’s Electronic System in accordance with Children’s Services Practice Standards.
• To record clinical activity on the CAMHS electronic record system in accordance with Trust policy.
• To support the delivery of our training offer to foster carers and the Team Around the Child.
• To represent AWP and BNSSG Trust professionally and positively at all times, with staff, local partners, service users, and carers.
• To contribute to the Integrated Business Plan for the area, including the LDU delivery strategy, North Somerset Corporate Parenting Strategy, and the Trust’s overarching Integrated Business Plan.
• To deliver operational services in line with national, Trust, and LDU strategic objectives and policies.
• To liaise with service users, carers, staff, and partners in both statutory and non-statutory fields, ensuring a shared understanding of service provision and commitments.
• To contribute to service area planning, delivery, choice, and governance, including maintaining links with key groups and networks.
• To contribute to the development and delivery of identified projects within the service area.

Person specification includes:

• Qualification: Doctoral Clinical Psychology qualification or equivalent; Maintenance of appropriate professional registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Experience: Post qualification of delivering evidence-based therapies to young people and families in CAMHS; Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team and ability to contribute to team meetings and processes; Experience of providing specialist assessments/interventions e.g. Autism assessments (ADOS), Eating Disorders or specialist CBT.
• Skills: Ability to work with children, young people, and families from a wide range of social, cultural, and minority ethnic backgrounds; Ability to work autonomously, and organise and prioritise workload; Experience of assessing and managing young people who are suicidal and young people who present a risk to self and others; Experience of Clinical supervision/consultation – junior colleagues or other staff.

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with ‘lived-experience’ of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities.

Please apply to join us, we would love to hear from you.