Job summary
- Main area
- Family Therapy
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (Monday-Friday)
- Job ref
- 310-MASMH-7745229
- Employer
- Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- S3 Ward
- Town
- Cambridge
- Salary
- £47,810 - £54,710 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 13/04/2026 23:59
Employer heading
Family Therapist
Band 7
Job overview
We are excited to recruit a Band 7 Family Therapist to join the S3 Adult Eating Disorder inpatient team. Together with the two current Principal Clinical Psychologists, the post-holder will be responsible for co-ordinating, developing and delivering a variety of family and systemic interventions.
This post provides a systemic overview of the family approach to the treatment of complex mental health disorders, specialising in eating disorders and will provide a qualified systemic family therapy service to inpatients and families of patients with an Eating Disorder.
This role will require seamless working with the ward MDT, the wider trust and other professional agencies such as the provider collaborative.
Main duties of the job
To provide a qualified highly specialist systemic family therapy service to clients who are inpatients on Ward S3. These interventions are highly specialised, reflecting an expectation that the service will continue to develop innovative practices that are based on collaboration between clinicians, service users and carers, and commissioners of the service. The post holder will be responsible for this process by researching new practices, understanding and applying evidence-based approaches both in relation to family treatments and in the involvement of service users and carers.
Some weekend/evening working will be necessary to support access for families and patients to attend family sessions/multi family days.
The post-holder will be expected to offer advice and consultation on clients’ care to all colleagues and to other, non professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures.
Working for our organisation
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high-quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting and empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.
Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services, not only via inpatient and primary care settings, but also within the community. These services include children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, research and development.
To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high-calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including people with long term conditions and members of our ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ communities.
Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date should we receive sufficient applications.
Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.
For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at www.cpft.nhs.uk
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities
1. The post holder will undertake specialist assessment and care planned interventions of adults and families referred to the Adult Eating Disorder Service.
2. Together with the two current Principal Clinical Psychologists, the post holder will be responsible for the delivery of a full range of family treatments to patients. These treatments may include the following systemic psychotherapy interventions.
· Conjoint family therapy (all family members present in the room at the same time, plus patient and other members of multi-disciplinary team).
· Separated family therapy (i.e. parental counselling and individual systemic counselling running in parallel).
· Multi-family group therapy
3. The post holder is expected to participate in joint assessments of patients referred for treatment and to consult to multi-disciplinary and multi-agency colleagues regarding the family treatment component of each patient’s care. Assessment of family interactions and formulating how these are connected to diagnostic factors will be a key component of the post, influencing the direction of treatment and recommendations for appropriate family interventions.
4. To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner to clients, family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.
5. To monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care, and to provide appropriate reports on this.
6. To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of systemic assessment and formulation and treatment outcome, in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.
7. To work in partnership with other disciplines, in particular Clinical Psychology, to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory and primary care agencies as appropriate.
8. To provide appropriate care for clients not engaged in treatment including: psycho-education, liaising with other professionals, engaging in treatment including using structured approaches such as motivational interviewing, risk assessment, health promotion and crisis intervention.
9. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on aspects of risk assessment and risk management in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures.
10. Responsible for maintaining video equipment and for training colleagues in the use of this.
11. As a senior member of the staff team the post-holder is expected to contribute significantly to the resolution of conflicts between staff and the maintenance of a well-functioning multi-disciplinary team.
12. In common with all Systemic Psychotherapists the post-holder will be responsible for ensuring that they receive regular clinical supervision and continuing professional development, in accordance with United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy/Association of Family Therapy requirements and good standards practice guidelines.
Person specification
Education and Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Doctoral/M.Sc./Post-graduate Diploma in Systemic Psychotherapy/Family Therapy.
- UKCP registered family therapist
Desirable criteria
- Relevant specialist training in adult mental health disorders
- Additional qualification in a related profession (e.g. social work, nursing, psychology).
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan
- Ability to work co-operatively in an MDT
- Previous employment in a related health or social care post.
- Planning and delivering teaching to health and/or social care professionals
- Involvement in a variety of systemic psychotherapy interventions (e.g. conjoint family therapy, parental counselling, group therapy).
Desirable criteria
- Relevant experience of working collaboratively with service users and carers in the development of patient/client-centred services
- Familiarity with research methodology
- Experience across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in-patient settings.
Skills & Abilities
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of complex methods of assessment, formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration. This requires the use of highly developed analytical and judgement skills.
- Of current, evidence based, stepped care models of care as detailed in NICE guidance
- Skills in individual and group work and in programme planning
- Planning and organising skills for caseload management
- Skills in self-management, including time-management
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information, including contentious and highly distressing information, to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised systemic therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc.)
- Experience and skills in clinical supervision
Physical Requirements
Essential criteria
- Ability to work competently with highly distressing circumstances – frequently facilitating discussions in which complex treatment decisions are made.
- Ability to contain and work with organisational stress
- Ability to frequently concentrate for sustained periods of time in order to plan and apply complex systemic interventions (e.g. multi-family group therapy).
- Ability to understand and utilise therapeutic use of self and to maintain insight through constructive use of personal supervision
Other
Essential criteria
- To maintain highest professional standards and skills required by UKCP and AFT for annual registration.
- Willingness to develop the role of the family/systemic psychotherapist within the service and to contribute to the broader field.
- Must be capable of interpreting broad occupational policies and be accountable for own professional actions
Knowledge & Understanding
Essential criteria
- Knowledge of Eating Disorders and common co-morbidities - anxiety including OCD, anxiety & depression. Good working knowledge of evidence base for the treatment of Eating Disorders in Adults.
- Good understanding of other professionals’ theoretical perspectives of this client group.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance, including regular supervision, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
- Knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of systemic psychotherapy.
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by UKCP and AFT.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Megan Thody
- Job title
- Ward Manager
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01223 216944
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