CAMHS Practitioner

The post holder will join a multi-disciplinary CAMH service which is responsible for the delivery of CAMHS service to children and young people living in the Borough of Ealing.

• To work with the team to deliver assessments and evidence-based interventions for children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties and their families/carers.
• To contribute within the multi-disciplinary team to deliver mental health care to identified children and their families and/or carers. The post holder will deliver primarily cognitive-behavioural interventions.
• To undertake complex multi-agency work with all agencies (e.g. paediatrics, education, children services) and colleagues within West London Health Trust.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for their professional clinical practice within the service, including taking responsibility for contributing to audit, policy and service development/quality improvement in line with clinical governance.

Main duties of the job:

• To provide mental health assessments and specialist cognitive-behavioural interventions for young people 0-18 and their families.
• To provide consultation and advice to professionals working across multi-agencies involved with respect to child and adolescent mental health.
• To provide training in aspects of child mental health to professionals in a range of primary settings, including primary health, schools and children’s social care settings and to develop a local needs analysis to support such training.
• To ensure the systemic provision of specialist mental health services to children, adolescents, their families and/or carers within the service.
• To take an active role, as and when necessary, in the development of specialist projects and services under the supervision of the professional lead consultant.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines.

West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK. Our 3,982 staff care for people in hospital and in the community, helping them to recover and go on to lead full and productive lives. We aim to be the best organisation of our kind in the country. We provide care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units. Together, we’re committed to promoting hope and wellbeing, working with patients, service users, carers, families and partners across the communities we serve.

The regulations mandating vaccination for in-scope roles in the NHS have now been removed. The Trust does however continue to encourage and support staff to be vaccinated as this remains the best line of defence against COVID-19. Vaccination data will be collected by our recruitment team during your on-boarding if you are happy to provide a copy of your COVID pass.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities:

The Candidate Pack provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required.

The person specification below is not the full person specification, but outlines the criteria against which your application form will be assessed.

Qualifications:

• Post-graduate training in CBT (e.g. PGDip in CYP-IAPT CBT or substantial CBT training as part of PsychD Clinical or Counselling Psychology Doctorate) PLUS Professional knowledge acquired through a degree-level qualification in one of the following:

• Nursing (RMN, RGN or RSCN) with additional therapeutic qualifications
• Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology or equivalent if trained overseas, plus registration as a clinical or counselling psychologist with the HCPC
• Master’s Degree in Systemic and Family Psychotherapy
• Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy (eligible for full membership of the Association of Child Psychotherapists)
• Social Worker with additional therapeutic qualifications
• Occupational Therapist
• CBT therapist accredited with the BABCP, to include training in working with children, adolescents and families

Current professional registration as applicable: the Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC), Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC), Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) or The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), BABCP. Further short courses/CPD in CBT.

Experience:

• Experience of working with children, adolescents and their families within mental health settings.
• Experience of specialist mental health assessment of and treatment with children, adolescents and their families.
• Practice experience of providing cognitive-behavioural interventions, including assessment and formulation.
• Experience using routine outcome measures and session feedback measures.
• Experience of maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of assessment and intervention around neurodiversity.
• Experience working in a multidisciplinary team.
• Experience of multi-agency work.
• Experience of teaching, supervision and/or consultation.
• Experience of the application of mental health knowledge and skills in different cultural contexts.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• An understanding of the impact of abuse, trauma and other adverse experiences on children and families.
• Knowledge of Child protection policies and procedures.
• Knowledge of child development.
• Understanding of the evidence base in relation to child mental health.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of mental health assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Ability to formulate comprehensive assessments and offer effective treatment based on clinical theory and principles, particularly cognitive-behavioural models.
• Skills in cognitive behavioural interventions for a range of presentations within CAMHS.
• Ability to identify and manage risk effectively.
• Skills and the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Knowledge of other therapeutic approaches.
• Ability to adapt CBT for neurodiverse populations.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Experience of teaching/training others.

Personal Qualities:

• Ability to manage and plan own workload.
• A commitment to involvement in quality improvement and service development.
• Ability to recognise own and others work-related stress and pressures and take appropriate action.
• Able to build constructive relationships with warmth and empathy, using good communication skills.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.