Job summary
- Main area
- Mental Health
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent: Full Time
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 363-SS7449609
- Employer
- East London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Newham CAMHS
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £61,631 - £68,623 per annum Inc HCAs
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 14/09/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Highly Specialist CAMHS Practitioner
NHS AfC: Band 8a
ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
Job overview
We are seeking an enthusiastic and creative Highly Specialist CAMHS clinician to join the E&B Team. The post holder will be expected to conduct specialist CAMHS assessment and offer treatment (both individual and group) for young people aged 6-18 presenting with a range of mental health difficulties. The post holder will require a high degree of professional autonomy and self-management, and will be required to account for their professional practice through appraisal and audit. The post holder will directly contribute to the positive working environment within the multi-disciplinary team. The role includes care-coordination, work with the wider network, being part of the duty system and supervisory responsibilities.
Main duties of the job
The E&B teams works with young people across the age range with a wide range of presentations from moderate to severe mental illness, including those who have experienced trauma and abuse and those presenting with suicidality and self-harm. The E&B teams are composed of a mix of disciplines including Clinical Psychology, Systemic Family Therapy, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Mental Health Nursing, Creative Therapies and Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
Applicants who have experience and appreciation of some of the richness and complexities of working inter-culturally are welcomed. Newham CAMHS is a service committed to working with community partners and addressing inequalities. This post is part of a comprehensive Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service, within the East London NHS Foundation Trust. The successful candidate will be part of a stimulating and supportive multidisciplinary team. There is a strong commitment to clinical supervision and professional development within CAMHS and the wider NHS Foundation Trust including many learning and teaching opportunities.
Working for our organisation
Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Newham CAMHS is a large and vibrant specialist child and adolescent mental health service with a reputation for innovation and flexibility in meeting the complex mental health support needs of Newham's children, young people and families. It is centrally located on one site in Plaistow, Newham, and provides an extensive and growing range of services including multi-disciplinary specialist teams such as the Emotional & Behavioural Teams, Adolescent Mental Health Team, Paediatric Liaison Team, Neurodevelopmental Team, Children in Care Pathway and the Well Being in Newham Schools Team. It meets weekly with community partners and social care as part of the Newham Multi Agency Collective. Practitioners work in Youth Zones and form part of the Vanguard Team - a specialist community psychology led service in Newham, for young people up to 25 years of age impacted by, or at risk of youth violence. There is a broad spectrum of disciplines and a long tradition of effective multidisciplinary and interagency working, outreach and consultation work.
Person specification
Education/ Qualification/ Training
Essential criteria
- • Degree level study or equivalent / Further post degree qualification
- • Current Registration with appropriate professional body
- Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy Honours degree. Postgraduate Diploma / MA in Psychoanalytical Observational Studies or recognised equivalent. Masters in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy: Child & Adolescent. Registered with the APC. or Clinical or Counselling Psychology Honours degree. Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS. Registered with the HCPC. or Family & Systemic Psychotherapy Qualification in appropriate mental health/social welfare profession such as Social Work, Clinical Psychology, Nursing or Counselling. Masters or Doctoral level qualification in Systemic Psychotherapy or AFT agreed equivalent. or Creative Therapies Masters (or equivalent) in Arts Therapies Registration with the HCPC (or in the case of Dance Movement Psychotherapists registration with ADMPUK) • Evidence of continuous and relevant professional training and development (CPD) in keeping with qualification period. or Mental Health Nursing Registration Mental Nurse or Children’s Nurse (Part 3/8/13 or 15 of the UKCC Register) Relevant post-graduate qualification in Child and adolescent mental health. (e.g. ENB 603, appropriate/relevant degree, years 1 and 2 family therapy training etc) ENB 998 or equivalent
Desirable criteria
- • Qualifications/ training in specialist skills e.g. systemic therapies, neuropsychology, MBT training, ADOS training, trauma therapies
Experience
Essential criteria
- • Substantial post qualification experience within the specialty of CAMHS assessed experience of working at an equivalent to Band 7 or 8A level in child and adolescent mental health.
- • Experience of liaison and joint work with other statutory services, including Social Services and Education, and voluntary agencies, including crisis management.
- • Experience of assessing children and adolescents for intervention including risk assessment.
- • Experience of providing evidence based interventions to patients with complex problems.
- • Experience of working in a multi-ethnic community and of working with interpreters
- • Experience of working in inner city communities and awareness of the potential impact of discrimination and disadvantage on mental health. Able to provide a culturally competent service.
- • Experience of working in multi disciplinary or multi agency teams
- • Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.
- • Experience of providing clinical supervision.
Desirable criteria
- • Experience of developing and implementing care pathways.
- • Experience of teaching/training
- • Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings and specialist school provisions.
- • Experience of management responsibilities.
- • Service development experience.
- • Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria
- • Communication & Relationship skills
- • A high level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level complex, highly technical and clinically sensitive information to adolescent clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS
- • Able to use highly specialist skills of empathy and diplomacy to overcome significant barriers to understanding and acceptance often in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere.
- • Able to provide consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- • Assessment and formulation skills and able to draw upon a broad theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of highly complex facts or situations to arrive at appropriate formulations. Able to compare and select from a range of treatment options based on formulations.
- • Ability to practice in an emotionally sensitive way and to deal with hostility and antagonism, to impart difficult news.
- • Skills of negotiation.
- • Skills of assessment and formulation of highly complex clinical and staff situations.
- • Able to initiate, flexibly plan, organise and prioritise a broad range of complex activities or programmes over time.
- • Competency and confidence in the selection and administration of cognitive assessment and neuropsychological test equipment.
- • Competent IT skills (e.g. keyboard skills).
- • Ability to write coherent, clear and relevant reports.
- • Able to record and report on clinical information as required.
- Competent in use of advanced IT packages in addition to word processing, e.g., SPSS
- • Ability to develop content and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
- • Research & Guidance
- • Up to date knowledge of psychological research and national guidance relevant to the client group
- • Knowledge of legislation and its implications for clinical practice with this client group.
- • Formal training in Clinical supervision
- • Record of providing training and supervision to others to widen the availability of CBT.
- • High level of competency in cognitive assessment and psychological therapies.
- • Able to be flexible and adapt approach according to need.
- • Able to accommodate disruption to plans owing to the often crisis nature of the Acute working environment.
- • Abilities to deal with stressful situations arising with staff or clients.
- • Advanced keyboard skills including competency in the use of other IT packages e.g. Word, PowerPoint, Excel, SPSS
Desirable criteria
- • Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS or other institution
- • Formal training in Leadership Skills
- • Masters or Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis and qualitative research techniques.
Other
Essential criteria
- • Commitment to Equal Opportunities
- • Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological phenomena, an interest in models of service delivery, and an ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary mental health services.
- • Able to manage effectively frequent exposure to highly distressing/highly emotional circumstances and exposure to traumatic circumstances.
- • Ability to endure prolonged periods of concentration for extended client therapy sessions.
- • Ability to deal sensitively with stressful situations including staff and /or organisational problems, child abuse, family breakdown, serious mental ill health, and to cope with verbal abuse, aggression from service users, families etc and to recognise and diffuse potential physical abuse from clients. Able to contain and work with organisational stress and hold the stress of others.
- • Respectful approach to service users, families, carers, colleagues and other professionals
- • Able to give guidance, to negotiate and handle confrontation effectively and professionally.
- • Able to respond calmly and flexibly to rapidly changing priorities.
- • Ability to demonstrate leadership and management skills.
- • Working to Professional Guidelines
- • Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers, other young people and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
- • Ability to identify and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- • Ability to articulate and interpret clearly the role of the profession of clinical psychology based upon a good understanding of the framework of government and national professional policy.
- • Must be accountable for own professional actions and interpretation of policies
Desirable criteria
- • Highly Specialised academic interest to stimulate a thoughtful and reflective Psychology Team and to encourage research confidence and awareness within the wider organisation.
- • Record of having published in either peer reviewed or academic professional journals and/or books
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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
- Aysha Begum
- Job title
- Psychology Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02084309000
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