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Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

1. To provide highly specialist psychological assessments of young people and their families referred to the Service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with young people, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a child or young person’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individual children and young people, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of children and young people whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to child or young person’s formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
7. To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of client children and young people of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual children and young people and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
9. To coordinate care, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the child or young person’s needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, tasking responsibility for arranging reviews as required and communicating effectively with the child or young person, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.
10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of children and young people under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
11. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

Teaching, Training and Supervision

1. The post holder will be expected to undertake teaching, training and supervision in accordance with CAMHS Directorate common expectations for P&P staff and in line with the strategy agreed within the CAMHS Directorate.
2. To provide clinical placements for psychology trainees ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
3. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to other qualified psychologists and or otherpsychotherapists/ systemic family therapists attached to the team.
4. To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to children and young people referred to the service.
5. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychologists/ as appropriate.
6. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.
7. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
8. To undertake personal development to complete mandatory training.

Management, Recruitment, Policy and Service Development

1. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
2. To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to teams, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified psychology / and other psychological therapists, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of children, young people and their families.
3. In conjunction with the CAMHS Consultant Psychology Lead, to exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within a service area.
4. In conjunction with the CAMHS Consultant Psychology lead, to oversee and manage the workloads of Psychology & Psychotherapies staff within the service area and within the framework of the service policy and procedures.
5. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees and qualified psychologists / psychotherapists.

Research and Service Evaluation

1. To take a lead in research and service evaluation in line with the strategy agreed within the CAMHS Directorate specifically:
2. To work in support of members of the Clinical Operational Group in planning and implementing systems for the evaluation, monitoring and development of CAMHS services. This will require the post holder to have skills in use of modern information systems and data analysis.
3. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
4. To undertake supervision of appropriate research by trainees and provide research advice to staff.
5. To deliver on tasks in project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to children, young people and their families.

Other

1. To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
2. To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychology / psychotherapy in CAMHS and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the fields of psychology / psychotherapy and related disciplines.
3. To maintain and promulgate the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the relevant professional body and the Trust policies and procedures.
4. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the health and welfare of children and adolescents and mental health.