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Highly Specialist Children's Occupational Therapist
The closing date is 25 February 2026
This is an exciting opportunity for a Highly Specialist Children's Occupational Therapist to join the South East Kent locality team, based at the Beacon in Folkestone.
Please note this is a fixed term secondment opportunity.
As a Kent-wide Children's therapy service, there will be opportunities to work across the locality responding to service need and demand.
The Children's therapies team in South East Kent are an outcomes focussed service using a patient‑reported outcome tool with children, young people and their families to understand what is important to them and what support they might need to achieve these outcomes.
You will be a part of a dynamic and innovative Children's therapies team who are committed to integrated working. Continuing Professional development and peer supervision are available for all staff.
You will have the knowledge and skills to be able to manage a caseload of complex children and provide the highly specialist assessment, advice, intervention and support for these children and their carers.
Please note, this vacancy does not meet the criteria for skilled worker sponsorship and therefore, we are unable to accept applications from candidates that cannot provide documentary evidence of right to work in the United Kingdom.
Main duties of the job
We are seeking a highly specialist Occupational Therapist who along with their Band 7 peers, will be providing clinical leadership to the Occupational therapy team.
Using highly specialist knowledge and skills for Occupational therapy assessment and intervention, you will be responsible managing the flow of children through the service from integrated triage to end point of therapy maintaining a safe and effective service.
You will have the ability to lead and manage specialist clinical pathways and projects to improve the service for the Children, Young people and their families.
You will inspire and support the team of Occupational therapists and therapy assistants through supervision, mentoring and living the Trust Values.
About us
Rated 'outstanding' by the CQC, we've got a passion for delivering high standards of patient care and excellent services to improve the health of our communities. To do this we need outstanding people who share our values compassionate Aspirational Responsive Excellent.
We know a commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion leads to better patient care and a happier workforce. We pride ourselves in being diverse and welcome applications from people with varied backgrounds, perspectives and experiences.
We ask for information about your protected characteristics on our application forms. This isn't visible to anyone involved with shortlisting or interviewing you, except when you choose to be considered under the guaranteed interview scheme due to disability.
The data we collect helps us to ensure we are attracting diversity in our applicants, that all our colleagues have equitable access to career opportunities and supports us on our journey to being a Great Place to Work.
As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want you to be able to work in a way that is best for us, for our patients and for you. Talk to us about a flexible working arrangement that won't involve sacrificing time for personal interests or family commitments. We'll support you to work flexibly in a way that will suit us both.
See where you can go with KCHFT career pathways.
Job responsibilities
Please note: at this stage, the role is open only to colleagues currently employed within Kent and Medway NHS Trusts and the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (ICB). Nursing vacancies are also open to Student Nurses and Newly Qualified Nurses.
As a community Trust, many of our roles require individuals to be able to drive to perform their duties. Where driving is a requirement of the role, you will be asked to confirm that you hold a full UK driving licence or a full driving licence issued by an EU country (not exchanged from a non-EU country) to proceed with your application. We are committed to supporting candidates with disabilities into employment. If you are unable to drive due to a disability, please contact the Recruitment Team via kentchft.recruitment@nhs.net, quoting the vacancy reference number, so we can support you further.
The job description and person specification gives you all the information you need about this role. Please look carefully at the criteria in the person specification and tell us what you have done that shows you meet this in your application. If you need an application form in an alternative format please let our recruitment team know. All information you supply on your application should, to the best of your knowledge, be true and accurate.
Still have questions? The recruiting manager would love to hear from you, their contact details can be found in the job advert.
We can get a lot of applications for some roles so to be in with the best chance of being shortlisted please make sure you apply as soon as possible. A vacancy may close early if there is a lot of interest in the job.
At KCHFT we strongly encourage colleagues in clinical and non‑clinical roles who have direct or social contact with patients to be fully vaccinated. In this way we will be doing all we can to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues and the patients we serve.
Find out more about the community difference here.
Good luck! We cant wait to meet you and welcome you to #teamKCHFT, #cometocommunity.
Person Specification
Qualifications
* Registered health care professional (HCPC registration)
Experience
* Demonstratable experience in area of practice
* Experience of leading and managing teams; Experience of developing policy and service development plans with practical experience of change management; Practical experience in managing health related projects/complex caseloads
* Supporting others (mentor / educator / supervisor ) experience
Knowledge
* Evidence of continued relevant professional development and implementation in practice within the last 12 months
Ability to manage
* Ability to prioritise care delivery in a professional manner, taking into account Trust policies and procedures; Ability to manage own time effectively.
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.
Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust
£47,810 to £54,710 a year per annum pro rata
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