Senior Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist - CFHD in Barnstaple

We are delighted to be recruiting a 0.8wte Senior Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist to join our developing Parent and Infant Mental Health offer within Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD). This role is focused on working with infants aged 0 to 2 years and their caregivers, supporting early relationships, emotional regulation, and development. We welcome applications from those seeking part time hours and are open to flexible working arrangements.

This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the growth of a specialist Parent and Infant Mental Health service at a key stage of development, within a compassionate, collaborative, and forward thinking organisation. The post can be based in any of our localities Exeter, Barnstaple or Totnes. The Parent and Infant Mental Health Team sits within the Mood, Emotions and Relationships (MERs) Pathway, while remaining a distinct specialist service focused on early relational health.

You will join a growing network of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists (CAPTs) across CFHD, with clinical leadership from a Principal CAPT and a strong culture of reflective practice, shared learning, supervision, and CPD.

• A preceptorship opportunity for early career CAPTs to develop into a Band 8a role
• A friendly, well established CAPT network, with strong links to national professional bodies and local training placements
• The opportunity to shape and influence a developing Parent and Infant Mental Health model of care

Main duties of the job:

• Provide specialist psychotherapy to infants (0-2 years) and their caregivers, including complex assessments and interventions that promote secure early relationships
• Offer formulation, consultation, and reflective spaces to colleagues across the multidisciplinary team, supporting psychologically informed care planning
• Hold a caseload tailored to the unique needs of infants and families, working flexibly across services and systems
• Contribute to service development, audit, and quality improvement initiatives within early years mental health
• Work collaboratively with partner agencies and confidently assess and respond to clinical and safeguarding risks
• Champion inclusive practice, coproduction, and the voice of families, ensuring care is accessible, meaningful, and responsive
• Engage in regular supervision, CPD, and reflective practice, contributing to your own development and that of the wider CAPT profession within CFHD
• Provide clinical supervision to trainee psychotherapists, Band 7 colleagues, and, where appropriate, colleagues from other disciplines
• Use your clinical leadership, audit, and research skills to take a lead in areas of service development and quality improvement

About us:

Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD) comprises an Alliance of NHS organisations working together to improve health outcomes for children and young people in Devon. CFHD provides integrated care and treatment for children and young people across physical and mental health which are provided by Torbay and South Devon Foundation Trust and Devon Partnership Trust. We are working closely with other organisations and providers to ensure we deliver locality and county-wide based integrated access to all of our services, based on the i-Thrive Framework.

CFHD works closely with our local universities of Plymouth, Exeter & the Peninsula Medical School where we support students in clinical training placements and in addition support our own staff to undertake post graduate training. Our integrated care and treatment has been developed and refined in partnership with children, young people and their families/carers. We would like the people who work for Children and Family Health Devon to be understanding, patient and respectful. They should be trustworthy and make us feel safe and comfortable. It is important that they use their skills and experience to listen carefully in a non-patronising and non-judgemental way. When staff are positive and friendly, they help to create an environment that is informal and without pressure.

Job responsibilities:

This is a fantastic opportunity for a Senior or Newly qualified CAPT to play a meaningful role in shaping an evolving Parent and Infant Mental Health service, supporting some of our youngest children and their families at a crucial stage of life.

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification.

Person Specification:

• Experience of working collaboratively with service users and their families/carers, including using goal-based care and routine outcome measures in practice.
• Experience of working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team and across agencies
• Experience of working with a wide variety of child mental health problems, across the whole age range, reflecting all levels of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and verbal abuse
• Experience of undertaking specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions for children and young people with highly complex mental health problems; including risk assessments
• Experience in providing effective clinical supervision, teaching, training and assessing in clinical practice.

• Doctorate Level ACP accredited training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
• Full member of Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP).
• Post qualification specialist therapy/assessment training relevant to children and young people
• Post qualification training or proven equivalent experience in supervision.

• An Enhanced DBS Check will be required for this role.
• Ability to travel across Devon.

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.