Go back Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
Senior Mental Health Practitioner or Clinical Psychologist
The closing date is 06 August 2025
Liverpool Enhanced Support Team is looking for an experienced Senior Mental Health Practitioner or Clinical Psychologist to join our service.
The Enhanced Support Team works with children and young people with complex needs who present with high risk, high harm behaviours and high vulnerability. They are likely to have difficulties in multiple domains which are persistent, severe and are framed by family and social contexts. This may include children and young people who are involved in youth justice services, not in education employment or training, who engage in substance misuse, have multiple adverse childhood experiences, who are neurodiverse or have speech language and communication difficulties etc. These children and young people are likely to have been referred to multiple services, but there are significant barriers to engagement
Liverpool Enhanced Support Team has links into Community CAMHS however is integrated with Childrens Services including Social Care and Youth Justice.
The successful applicant will contribute to the clinical work of the team and hold case management responsibility for their workload. Provision of supervision to lower banded team members, trainees and other internal professionals as required.
We are particularly seeking candidates who have substantial experience of working within complex systems, providing case consultation, multi-agency formulations and working with families indirectly via wider professional involvement.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will undertake appropriate mental health assessment of children and young people referred to CAMHS and provide a range of appropriate, evidence based clinical interventions informed by assessed individual need.
The post holder will provide support, advice and consultation to families/carers and other professionals involved in the life of the child/young person
About us
Liverpool Enhanced Support Team is part of the North-Mersey Vanguard, funded via NHS England Health and Justice to implement Framework for Integrated Care (Community),which was developed in response to the commitment set out in the NHS Long Term Plan to further invest in services for children and young people with complex needs.
Alder Hey has already earned our place as one of the world's leading children's hospitals, thanks to innovation and pioneering medical work. We treat 250,000 young patients a year and have a broad range of hospital and community services, serving the local population of children, as well as being a tertiary referral centre for children from across Merseyside, Cheshire and parts of Lancashire, Shropshire and North Wales.
Every individual makes a valuable contribution and Alder Hey is proud of its long history of providing pioneering and innovative healthcare to children and young people. We are looking for motivated and enthusiastic candidates to join our dynamic and experienced CAMHS team
Interested candidates are strongly encouraged to contact Laura Spike (Clinical Lead) for discussion regarding the job role and service overview.
Job responsibilities
Please see the attached job description and person specification for more details about duties and responsibilities.
Person Specification
Skills
* Skills in the use of complex methods of mental health assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
* Well developed skills in 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.
* Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
Qualifications & Training
* Qualified in core profession such as Mental Health Nurse (RMN), Mental Health Practitioner, Clinical Psychologist, Occupational Therapy, Social Work or creative therapies e.g. Art Therapy or Recognised degree level broad based health & social care qualification which will require completion of The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Knowledge Skills and Attributes
* Accredited therapeutic training
* Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of child and adolescent mental health.
* Post graduate (masters and above) level study
Experience
* Experience of specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions with children and young people with mental health problems and their families.
* Working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team
* Working collaboratively with other agencies in a variety of venues.
* 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 and physical abuse.
* Must be experienced in providing risk assessment of self harming behaviour
* Must be experienced in analysing presenting problems and able to demonstrate ability to work autonomously utilising a range of therapeutic perspectives and modalities, depending on the needs of the client.
* Must be experienced in and able to demonstrate ability to provide case management supervision for lower banded CAMHS Workers, students and other service group/team professionals as required.
* Must demonstrate ability to be self-reflective and to organise own supervision appropriately. Must be able to demonstrate ability to develop and evaluate consultation and training to other professionals and to staff groups.
* Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
* Experience of the application of specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions of in different cultural contexts.
* Experience of working with children and young people in a range of clinical settings.
Knowledge
* Some knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
* Must demonstrate knowledge of the evidence base in their practice.
* Must demonstrate understanding of child development and psychosocial influences
* Must demonstrate a working understanding of systemic, psychodynamic and cognitive theories along with recognition of when each approach is appropriate.
* Must demonstrate knowledge of audit and evaluation methodology.
* Must demonstrate knowledge of research methodology.
* Must demonstrate an understanding of current government initiatives underpinning service developments. Must demonstrate strong organisational skills.
* Must be able to demonstrate the ability to manage aspects of service development in line with government initiatives
* Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc)
* High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised therapies/interventions
* Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of child and adolescent mental health.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
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.
Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
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