Job summary
Employer heading
Speech and Language Therapist - Mainstream Schools Team
NHS AfC: Band 5
Job overview
Are you a recently qualified or soon to be qualified speech and language therapist? Or do you just want to try something new?
Do you love working in mainstream schools?
We have a part-time 0.8 WTE job for you!
We want to invite you to join the incredibly supportive Mainstream Schools Team working in the outer London Borough of Hillingdon.
Have a look at our Hillingdon Talks, Moves and Plays website to see if we would be a good fit for you
"Starting my career as a Speech and Language Therapist in Hillingdon Mainstream Schools team has given me a brilliant platform to develop my clinical skills with a varied caseload. Everyone is really friendly and I feel very supported through regular peer support meetings, buddying, safeguarding supervision and supervision with a senior therapist. "– Hannah- band 5
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
Main duties of the job
- You will be responsible for the assessment and therapy for the children attending your allocated schools who have identified SLCN needs including: developmental language disorder, speech sound disorders, stammering, selective mutism, learning difficulties and autism
- You will work directly with the children in groups and individually with an LSA observing the sessions in order to run follow up intervention
- You will run joint sessions with Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists
- You will offer training, advice and support to school staff
- You will support parents and keep in touch with them via phone calls or meetings, as well as sending them copies of care plans and targets and any reports
- You will jointly plan how to use your time in schools with the SENCO; allowing you to be flexible, creative and effective
- You will write statutory assessment and annual review reports
- You will be part of clinical working groups to help develop the service
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
Working for our organisation
We can offer you:
- A bright and homely office space to come back to - where you will get informal support, be able to ask questions and talk about your day
- An identified buddy to help you settle in and who you can ask lots of questions
- A friendly team with lots of initiatives to support well-being
- Regular supervision meetings with a senior therapist weekly at first and gradually moving to 6 weeks
- Termly peer supervision meetings where you can discuss difficult cases, share your experiences with other band 5 colleagues
- A busy but manageable caseload across a range of schools
- Opportunities for remote working in school and at home as well as access to online clinical records and resources
- Opportunities to develop your clinical skills through termly study afternoons, shadowing more experienced therapists, membership of a CEN, internal and external training
- Opportunities to work on projects with small groups of more experienced therapists to develop your skills
We are proud to say that the service has:
- 91% of SENCO’s report that they are happy or very happy with the service
- 92.5% of parents report that they are happy or very happy with the service. A parent representative attends all of the mainstream schools meetings and parent feedback is sought for new developments
- An annual service improvement plan in order to ensure that the service is continually evolving and developing
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Mainstream Schools team:
- To provide a service to children/young people in mainstream schools who have a speech, language or communication need.
- To be responsible for providing assessment, diagnosis & therapy packages into allocated schools.
- To train and support school staff & parents, in order for them to implement therapy advice effectively.
- To support schools with the early identification of children with speech/language/communication needs.
- To prioritise the Safeguarding of Vulnerable Children at all times
- To support the service to achieve Key Performance Indicators and maintain Target Activity Levels
- To take part in quality governance, audits and projects for the team/service
- To contribute to, and provide feedback about, possible developments in the team
Person specification
Education
Essential criteria
- • Recognised Speech and Language Therapy Degree qualification or equivalent
- • Health and Care Professions Council licence to practice.
- • Registered member of Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
Desirable criteria
- • First class honours degree or equivalent
- • Further training courses relevant to the post
Skills and knowledge
Essential criteria
- • Knowledge of assessment tools relevant to school age children with SLCN.
- • Knowledge of a range of appropriate therapy approaches for school age children with SLCN including: speech, language, stammering, social communication, selective mutism
- • Knowledge of national policies and procedures relevant to school age children with SLCN.
- • Awareness of the principles of clinical governance/audit
- • Awareness of the roles of other professionals relevant to school age children with SLCN
- • Knowledge of standards of record keeping.
Desirable criteria
- • Experience of assessing a range of school age children with SLCN independently
- • Experience of using a range of appropriate therapy approaches independently, with school age children
- • Experience of contributing to clinical audits
Experience
Essential criteria
- • Experience of working in a mainstream school as a therapist/teacher/learning support assistant
Desirable criteria
- • Experience of working as a speech and language therapist
- • Experience of delivering training to school staff
Attitudes, aptitudes, personal
Essential criteria
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with professionals, children and their families
- Excellent empathy skills.
- Ability to be a good team member. Good negotiation and problem solving skills.
- Good analytical and reflection skills.
- Good concentration skills.
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
- Wendy Botten
- Job title
- SLT team leader - mainstream schools team
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01895 488 200
- Additional information
Wendy Botten -Team Leader – Mainstream Schools Team on [email protected]
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