Clinical or Counselling Psychologist

The Children's Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) team comprises of 4 qualified CWPs, an experienced Clinical Psychologist and two further posts working across a cluster of schools in Sutton.

The advertised post provides direct interventions for more moderate mental health presentations and contributes to a whole school approach (WSA) across the school cluster. This may include running parent workshops and staff training sessions, offering reflective practice groups and consultation to school staff.

These are exciting and varied roles with good scope for creative and innovative working within a new national initiative to increase mental health input directly into schools. There is a very strong peer support network across the CAMHS Education Wellbeing Service (comprising of all of the CWP and Mental Health Support Teams). There is a huge amount of opportunity for developing skills and being at the forefront of an innovative service. We are looking for an enthusiastic, proactive and creative therapist who is keen to expand their skills and learn on the job, with strong support offered at all levels.

We pride ourselves on running an inclusive schools service and would be willing to consider a term time only plus 4 weeks contract if preferred. This equates to 0.93wte and allows for around an additional 20 days annual leave during the school holidays (on top of usual annual leave allowances), ideal for working parents.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will offer direct clinical interventions, both individual and group, as appropriate for their profession and skill set. The WSA work involves working collaboratively with schools at a preventative level and meeting need as it arises within the wider school setting. There are good training opportunities, either through internal CAMHS training or via the specific training events run by Kings College London.

The CWP team exists within an overall network of child mental health resources that coordinates early help, target help and specialist interventions for children and young people according to presentation and need. There are also good opportunities for linking in with local CAMHS and the Single Point of Access within the borough. As these services are all run by the Trust, this makes for smoother linking in and liaison across teams.

This post will require:

• Qualification as a registered Clinical / Counselling / Educational Psychologist OR Family Therapist OR Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist
• Good experience of working therapeutically with children, young people & parents
• Some previous experience of training and teaching
• Experience of working with self-harm and / or challenging behaviour
• Strong communication skills
• The ability to work cohesively and collaboratively both within a small team and within the wider school cluster
• The ability to use feedback, reflect and adapt accordingly
• Strong organisational skills

About us

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' - we aspire to be 'outstanding'.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services as we invest a further £120m to upgrade and modernise our estate by 2027.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Come and join our inclusive teams and help our patients on their recovery journey.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical

• To provide specialist assessments of children and young people referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and where appropriate, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews in line with CYP IAPT methodology.
• To formulate and implement plans for evidence-based interventions, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, to improve the parent/child relationship.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychotherapeutic interventions employed individually and in synthesis, maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses, adjusting and refining formulations or understandings, drawing upon different explanatory models and employing methods of intervention that are based upon evidence of efficacy.
• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual and the family.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• To provide specialist mental health advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to the care of the child.
• To contribute to and/or use evidence-based, integrated working tools and processes, to ensure children receive holistic and co-ordinated services in response to their mental health needs.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of children and young people who are under their care.
• To monitor progress during the course of interventions, ensuring that all interventions are fully assessed, planned, implemented and evaluated in conjunction with CYP IAPT minimum dataset standards.
• To maintain accurate and accessible health care records according to Trust policy and Information Governance requirements.
• To demonstrate high level communication skills, both written and verbal, within all agencies.

Teaching, Training, and Supervision

• To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior psychologist / psychotherapist and, where appropriate, other senior colleagues.
• To gain additional experience and skills relevant to the profession and/or the service (as agreed with the responsible professional and team manager) in accordance with the CAMHS Directorates common expectations for P& P staff.
• To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staff's psychological work as appropriate.
• To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, including the school cluster.

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Demonstrable experience of working with children and young people in a variety of clinical and community settings.
• Experience of multi-disciplinary team working.
• Experience of inter-agency working.
• Experience of safeguarding and Child Protection.
• Experience of managing self harm and risk.

Desirable

• Experience of working in schools.
• Experience of working in the NHS.
• Experience of teaching and liaising with other professional groups.
• Personal knowledge of communities of ethnic and racial diversity.
• Experience of working with children and young people with SEN / ASD.

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualified Clinical / Counselling / Educational Psychologist registered with the HCPC as an applied psychologist, or
• Qualified Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist having successfully completed a training course recognised/accredited by the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) or equivalent, and registered with ACP, or
• Qualified Systemic Family Psychotherapist registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) via the College of Family Couple and Systemic Therapy, and post-graduate qualification in relevant mental health/social welfare profession with demonstrable practice over a minimum of four years.
• Where an applicant is in the final stages of training and has not yet obtained registration, an applicant will only be made an offer conditional upon successful registration within a time-scale that is specified.

Desirable

• Training as part of a CYP IAPT collaborative in a recognised evidenced based approach.

Employer details

Employer name

Address
Jubilee Health Centre
Wallington
SM6 0HY

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