CYP Clinical Psychologist
NELFT NHS Foundation TrustJoining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.
The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for five consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.
Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video
Job overview
The post-holder will be a qualified fully registered HCPC Clinical or Counselling Psychologist with a passion for working in this area. As part of the QNIC recommended structure for inpatient CYP units, we are recruiting for these psychology posts into our Kent & Medway Adolescent Hospital MDT. The post holder will work very closely with Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services across inpatient and community in Kent NELFT, the Kent and Sussex provider collaborative and other stakeholders. The post holder will work very closely with the Kent NELFT Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Service who offer specialist DBT assessments and interventions to YP and their families who are referred.
The post holder will be part of the ward MDT as well as linking with the Intensive Home Treatment team to ensure a smooth pathway for CYP between inpatient and community flow. The post holder will facilitate the therapeutic component of the ward programme with the MDT to ensure the clinical model is delivered with senior members of the Psychological Professions team.
The postholder will join a thriving psychological professions team across comprehensive CAMHS (inpatient and community). We have strong links with our local psychology training institute and on-going NHSE training for workforce expansion and upskilling.
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• To provide an efficient, effective, comprehensive and specialist psychological service for children and adolescents with emotional and mental health problems, their carers/parents, and families.
• Where appropriate to supervise assistant psychologists and trainees across the services.
• To contribute to multi-disciplinary assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with emotional and mental health problems, their carers/parents, and families.
• To undertake a range of clinical work, assessment work and parenting support.
• To contribute to audit and research.
• To actively engage in treatment and outcome monitoring, including the use of normed measures associated with CYP-IAPT.
• To work in clinical practice, making use of supervision, within the overall framework CYPMHS and the Trust’s policies and procedures.
Working for our organisation
Our Values 2025 - 2030
Working with our colleagues, patients and carers we have co-produced three new values that we aim to embed within our culture here at NELFT.
They are:
- We are kind.
- We are respectful.
- We work together with our communities.
These three values help us to strive to provide the best care by the best people.
Probationary Period
This post will be subject to a probationary period.
NELFT place great importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks, including mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focussing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
• To act as an autonomous professional fully registered with the appropriate professional or regulatory body (e.g. HCPC).
• To use appropriate clinical understanding in assessing, jointly with colleagues in the multidisciplinary team, children, adolescents, and their families to formulate their strengths and difficulties and to determine the most appropriate treatment plan.
• To work alongside other colleagues in CYPMHS and in the care pathway to provide an indepth comprehensive assessment of the child’s, young person’s, and family’s functioning where there is a constellation of high dysfunction and entrenched difficulties in the family.
• To provide therapeutic interventions with due regard to issues of cultural, racial and religious difference and sexual orientation.
• To provide clinical assessment of children and young people with severe, highly complex and persistent mental health problems.
• To undertake observations of children in school settings as part of wider assessments.
• To provide therapeutic interventions (including parent/child work, group work, parent support input, psycho-education and brief individual work with children and young people.
• To facilitate the development of a positive and ‘supportive’ team culture by taking responsibility for dealing effectively with potential conflict
• To take an active interest in working parties and groups within the Trust to develop and improve on service delivery, protocols, and guidelines.
• To participate in the audit process, linking in with the clinical governance agenda.
Benefits
We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:
- A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
- A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our efforts to support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity.
- Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
- Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.
As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.
Supporting our Armed Forces
We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans. reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.
Equal opportunities employer
We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.
We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email [email protected].
Correspondence with us
You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.
As part of our recruitment process, we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same.