Job overview
Islington Additional Needs and Disability Service provides a multi-agency team approach to working with babies, children and young people who present with additional needs and complex disabilities. We are looking for an experienced, dynamic and highly motivated Speech and Language Therapist to join this service, who is able to work sensitively with children and young people and who is committed to family centred practice.
This newly created post will be based within the Special Schools Team at The Bridge School across the Primary (for pupils aged 4-11) and Secondary (for pupils aged 11-19) Sites. The Bridge School is a special school catering for young people with a diagnosis of Autism and/or severe learning disabilities. It is a teaching school with three consecutive outstanding Ofsted reports. The post holder will be part of a multi-disciplinary team based within the school, where there are excellent opportunities for joint work with other professionals and outside agencies.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will work in the multidisciplinary and multi-agency environment including working with, specialist teachers, social workers, therapy assistants, psychologists, dieticians, paediatricians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and other professionals.
The post holder is an autonomous practitioner and is responsible for organising and managing a defined caseload of children. They is responsible for delivering a comprehensive and specialist service to children and young people who have special educational needs that may include Autism, Down’s syndrome and social and emotional difficulties.The majority of children use a form of AAC including Makaton signing, paper based or powered communication aids.
The service provides universal, targeted and specialist interventions, and includes assessment, liaison, and direct and indirect intervention for individual/groups of children and young people, working within the MDT. The post holder will devise and provide individualised care plans that are evaluated via outcome measures. They will employ specialist communication strategies used with the client group as appropriate. They will have knowledge of the school curriculum in order to ensure that the child’s treatment programme is dovetailed with the curriculum in the child’s educational environment.
They will liaise with educational colleagues in order to undertake joint planning and reviewing of targets, production of reports, and staff training.
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
1.To demonstrate clinical expertise in the assessment, treatment and management of, language and communication difficulties in children and young people providing appropriate specialist intervention and evaluating outcomes.
2.To demonstrate specialist knowledge in Autism and special educational needs underpinned by current evidence based practice and outcome measures.
3.To demonstrate highly developed perceptual skills in the assessment and treatment of young people with special educational needs.
4.To make appropriate specialist clinical decisions on evidence from assessment of complex cases, seeking advice as appropriate.
5.To develop knowledge and skills in managing children with special educational needs, seeking training, support and supervision from clinical supervisor as appropriate.
6.To develop clear care plans based on best practice.
7.To demonstrate clinical effectiveness reflecting on evidence based practice and outcome measures.
8.To provide advice to others regarding the management and care of children with communication difficulties.
9.To communicate complex condition related information to carers, families and members of the multi-disciplinary team/other professions, demonstrating empathy and ensuring that effective communication is achieved, particularly where barriers to understanding exist.
10.To work closely with clients, carers and families, in order to agree plan of management.
11.To deal with initial complaints sensitively, avoiding escalation where possible
12.To form productive relationships with others who may be under stress and/or have challenging communication difficulties.
13.To demonstrate excellent communication skills.
14.To demonstrate skills in motivating clients and /or parents/carers to engage in the therapeutic process.
15.To maintain sensitivity at all times to the emotional needs of children with special and complex needs and their carers, in particular when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of the client’s difficulties and implications of the same.
16.To demonstrate the ability to manage children with challenging behaviours including the application of appropriate management strategies.
17.To monitor and review the progress of children and young people against the targets set and agreed, and to modify targets as appropriate.
18.To adapt practice to meet individual client circumstances.
19.To reflect on clinical practice both individually and with peers identifying strengths and needs and providing evidence of sound clinical judgements based on research and the evidence based practice.
20.To develop the ability to reflect on auditory, visual and kinaesthetic aspects of client’s communication and to identify appropriate strategies to facilitate and enhance communicative effectiveness.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
1. •Successful completion of specialist short courses relevant to field of SLT and Autism
Desirable criteria
2. •Basic qualitative / quantitative research methodologies
Experience
Essential criteria
3. •Experiences of working with clients with Autism and/or Severe Learning Disabilities
Desirable criteria
4. •Experience supervising SLT students and therapy assistants
Knowledge
Essential criteria
5. •Knowledge of a range of assessment tools and procedures to evaluate communication skills relevant to young people with Autism and/or severe learning disabilities
Desirable criteria
6. •Experience of attendance at multi-agency meetings/annual reviews/EHCP meetings
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:
7. 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.
8. Ensure you are familiar and comply with the London Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
9. Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
10. Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
11. Participate in required training and supervision.
12. 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.