Highly Specialist Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist in London

This is an exciting opportunity for a qualified and ACP accredited Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist with more than 2 years post‐qualifying experience to join a CAMHS for Children Looked After (CLA) and Care Experienced Young People that is co‐located with Children's Social Care. The core clinical role has a consultative focus, including offering group and individual consultation to Social Workers. The role will have a clinical caseload of direct work with CLA, carers and birth parents. Our work is framed within a stepped model of care and 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.

Main duties of the job

• 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.
• Attend group supervision, sharing clinical and mental health knowledge and expertise to contribute to case discussion.
• Facilitate consultations with social workers and supervising social workers to enhance their trauma‐informed, relationship‐based practice with children and caregivers.
• Provide specialist mental health assessment, formulation and interventions with children, young people and care‐givers.
• Provide specialist evidence‐based intervention for looked‐after children and carers, drawing on innovative ways of engagement and intervention.
• 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.
• Formulate and devise clinical management plans for a range of specialist psychological interventions; individual, family and group.
• Provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, as required.
• Liaise with professionals in health, mental health, education, social care and voluntary sector services, as required.

Consultation and Clinical Work

• Provide highly specialist mental health advice and consultation to social workers in Islington's service for CLA and Care Experienced Young People to support their practice and management of children and young people aged 0‐18 with a range of presentations and needs.
• Attend group supervision, sharing clinical and mental health knowledge and expertise to contribute to case discussion.
• Facilitate individual and joint consultations with social workers, supervising social workers, and other professionals in the parenting team, to enhance their trauma and DDP informed practice.
• Facilitate individual and joint consultations specifically focussing on reunification and repair of parent‐child relationships.
• Contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills of the CLA workforce and to support embedding of the social work practice model.
• Provide specialist assessment and intervention for young people looked after, leaving care, their carers, families and professional networks, using evidence based and innovative ways of engagement and intervention.
• It is expected that 20% of the job plan would be allocated to direct clinical work, whether with foster carers, keyworkers or young people.
• Formulate and devise clinical management plans for a range of specialist psychological interventions; individual, family and group.
• Provide high quality reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, as required.
• Liaise with professionals in health, mental health, education, social care and voluntary sector services, as required.
• Work autonomously providing a specialist clinical service within.
• Ensure the regular use of routine outcomes as part of evaluating the impact of the clinical, consultation and other work offered.
• Have due regard for your own personal safety and that of children/carers, adhering to moving and handling regulations, restraining policies and ensure the safe positioning of self and others.
• Conform to the provisions of the Health and Safety Act and comply with local statutory training including the appropriate level of Child Protection, on an annual basis or as required.

Teaching, training and supervision

• Attend regular clinical supervision and participate in team and service training, as required.
• Provide clinical supervision and line management of trainees and other CAMHS staff, as required by the team and service.
• Contribute to the pre‐ and post‐qualification teaching of clinical staff as required.
• Continue to develop skills in professional post‐graduate teaching, training, consultation and supervision.

Management, policy and service development

• Provide line management for junior clinicians within the service as required by the Team Managers.
• Contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team's operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
• Advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
• Be involved, as appropriate, in the recruitment, short‐listing and interviewing of CAMHS Clinicians and Assistant Clinicians.
• Attend, as required, a range of inter‐agency meetings to represent the team in a delegated role, offering guidance, where appropriate, ensuring that issues relating to the service are noted and brought to the attention of the Team manager.
• Assist, in the integration and development of user participation, outcomes measures, and evidence‐based treatment approaches in line with the wider CAMHS strategy for service improvement.

Research and service evaluation

• Use feedback and outcome measures to review impact in clinical work and service development.
• Utilise theory, evidence‐based literature and research to support evidence‐based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
• Contribute to service development (and if necessary, undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research).

General

• Demonstrate anti‐discriminatory practice in all aspects of the role.
• Ensure the development and maintenance of the highest personal standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holder's line manager.
• Maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues of relevance to the service and client group.
• Undertake such other duties and responsibilities appropriate to the grade of the post, as may be agreed with Manager Community CAMHS.
• Be cognisant and respectful of CAMHS CLA Pledges.
• Be cognisant and respectful of Whittington's ICARE values.
• Be cognisant and respectful of values, policies and procedures of Islington Council, where we are situated.

Person specification

• Post‐graduate qualification in Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy from an ACP accredited training school.
• Registration with relevant professional body: ACP – Association of Child Psychotherapists.
• Experience of offering consultation and reflective practice to professionals outside of mental health.
• Advanced training / qualifications e.g. Dyadic Development Psychotherapy / Mentalisation based approaches.
• Advanced clinical skills qualifications.
• 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, with evidence of experience of working in children's social care.
• 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.
• Ability to maintain appropriate clinical records and in the use of electronic recording systems.
• Skills and experience in developing and delivering training.
• Ability to supervise range of clinical and non‐clinical staff, as required.
• Ability to form effective working relationships with a range of professionals in multi‐disciplinary and multi‐agency contexts.
• Skills in the use of a range of methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management of range of problems presented to CAMHS and adult mental health services.
• Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing with service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Interest and ability to contribute to service development.
• Ability to reflect on systemic issues.
• Skills and experience working with parental / adult mental health.
• Skills in neurodevelopmental assessments.

Knowledge & Experience

• Minimum of 2 years post qualification experience of child and adolescent mental health work.
• Demonstrable evidence of clinical experience with children looked after and care experienced young people – and interest in working with this client group.
• Experience of delivering a mental health service in a social care or other multi‐agency setting.
• Commitment to, and experience of using feedback and outcome measures to measure impact.
• Knowledge of relevant clinical research literature re: the impact of developmental trauma.
• Knowledge of relevant policy, practice and legislative frameworks.
• Knowledge and experience of reunification work with children and birth parents.
• Knowledge and experience of Developmental Dyadic Psychotherapy and its application in Social Work Practice.
• Experience line managing clinical and/or non‐clinical staff.
• Experience working with parental / adult mental health.

Personal Qualities

• Commitment to anti‐discriminatory practice.
• Enthusiasm and a creative approach to using clinical skills with clients, social care colleagues and the team.
• Passion for working alongside social care colleagues to improve outcomes for children who have experienced care.
• Agreement to join our CAMHS CLA commitments.

Safeguarding Children and Adults

• Ensure familiarisation with and compliance to the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
• Familiarise and comply with the London Multi‐Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
• Familiarise and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
• Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
• Participate in required training and supervision.
• Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct.

Equal Opportunities

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust is committed to anti‐discriminatory practice and to maintaining equality, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of its service delivery.