Job overview
Clinical Psychologist / CBT Therapist / CAMHS Clinician and Supervisor
1.6 Permanent and 1 Fixed Term (12 months) post (2.6 WTE total) are available in Islington's School Wellbeing Service. Part-time or job-share applications will be considered.
Islington's School Wellbeing Service is part of the national Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) initiative, aiming to improve access to help and the general culture of emotional support within primary and secondary schools. The service is delivered as a partnership between Whittington Health and LB Islington. The teams deliver preventative and early intervention mental health work to all the boroughs mainstream schools.
We are recruiting proactive, creative and skilled colleagues to join our thriving team. The successful applicants will be passionate about mental health in schools, widening access to services and enjoy inter-agency working.
Main duties of the job
The successful applicants will join one of our two locality teams in Islington's School Wellbeing Service. The role will include helping to develop and deliver a wide range of interventions within schools including direct psychological interventions with children, young people and their carers as well as groups, workshops and staff training as part of a whole-school approach to mental health. Alongside the team leads they will contribute to service development and evaluation and support the development and embedding of the SWS within Islington’s schools.
The post holders will have some responsibility for the supervision of qualified Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) in the team. Depending on experience there will be the opportunity to attend the one-year PG Cert Supervision: Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing Services de. This training is delivered in collaboration with UCL at Anna Freud in North London.
Working for our organisation
Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. 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 believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Job description
Please see the Job Description and the Person Specification attachments for full details of this role.
Key aspects:
1. To provide highly specialist mental health assessments of children of school age and their families, using individual, parent and family interviews, formal developmental, psychometric and other assessment methods as appropriate
2. To provide specialist generic and discipline-specific preventative and treatment interventions for referred clients including school age children, adolescents and their families
3. To oversee the formulation and intervention plans for schools, parents, children and young people being supported by the EMHPs using a range of specialist psychological interventions appropriate to the service; individual and group.
4. Working in partnership with schools, to support children, young people experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their families in the self-management of presenting difficulties.
5. Provide a range of information and support to schools for evidence based psychological interventions, including guided self-help and signposting to other services where appropriate.
6. To provide clinical supervision to EMHPs along with other clinical supervisors in the team.
7. Support EMHPs/CWPs in the co-delivery of training sessions, group and individual interventions in schools.
8. To support the EMHPs to liaise with other education, health, social care and voluntary sector staff from a range of agencies, in the care provided to clients.
9. To support EMHPs in meeting their training requirements, and to fulfil requirements of any supervisor training that may be part of the job role.
10. To support the management and screening of referrals into the MHS
11. To help manage the day-to-day running of the MHST at an operational level.
Person specification
Education / Qualifications
Essential criteria
12. Post-graduate/doctoral level qualification in clinical psychology, counselling psychology, educational psychology, family and systemic psychotherapy or child and adolescent psychotherapy as recognised by HCPC/DOH/UKCP/ACP, or other relevant professional qualification recognised by appropriate registering bodies including qualified CBT Therapists
Desirable criteria
13. Specific training in an area related to CYPIAPT e.g. CBT, systemic, parenting or supervision
SKills and Abilities
Essential criteria
14. Skills in the assessment of mental health factors for children with complex emotional and behavioural difficulties and challenging behaviour, their families and carers.
15. Skills and abilities in delivering preventative and early-stage mental health interventions
16. Skills and abilities in delivering whole-school interventions for social, emotional and mental health
17. Ability to work autonomously to engage hard to reach families providing an assessment and treatment service.
18. Skills in the assessment of clinical risk and safeguarding concerns.
19. Skills in the flexible use of evidence-based intervention and management of children/young people with complex emotional and behavioural difficulties, their families and carers.
20. Ability to form excellent working relationships with colleagues and work flexibly and sensitively with others in multidisciplinary and multi-agency settings.
21. Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
22. Knowledge and skills in effective communication, 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.
23. Skills in effectively managing a clinical caseload, completing outcomes measures routinely, updating clinical records in line with team, service and Trust requirements
24. Ability to type own notes on our RIO electronic patient records.
Desirable criteria
25. Skills in supervising clinicians in CBT based interventions
Knowledge and Experience
Essential criteria
26. High level knowledge of the theory and practice of psychological interventions
27. Knowledge and experience of individual, group and organisational interventions for preventing mental health problems and early intervention
28. Experience of working with children and young people presenting with a range of mental health difficulties and challenging behaviour.
29. Experience of multidisciplinary and multiagency working and co-working assessments and treatment.
30. Experience of working clinically in community settings e.g. with schools to meet the mental health needs of CYP.
31. Experience of providing a culturally sensitive therapeutic service to young people and families.
Desirable criteria
32. Knowledge of or training in trauma-informed approaches with children and young people.
33. Experience of delivering parenting programmes e.g. webster Stratton, Triple P, NVR
SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS
To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:
34. Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
35. Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
36. Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
37. Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
38. Participate in required training and supervision.
39. Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct
Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.