Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Communication

•          Work closely and collaboratively within a multi-agency setting, consulting with colleagues in the statutory and voluntary sector who are involved with a children and young people and families with complex and severe mental health problems.

•          Provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

•          Produce high-quality verbal and written specialist psychological formulations and reports that aid evidence based clinical interventions for children, families and other professionals.

•          Provide specialist training on psychological theory and interventions to colleagues within the multi-disciplinary CAMHS and within the wider multi-agency professional network.  

•          Communicate highly sensitive and complex condition-related and information to children, young people and their families, sometimes in an emotive and/or hostile environment. 

•          Use a range of creative and flexible communication methods to engage children, young people and their families in the assessment and treatment process, especially those who are hard to reach (eg children involved in the youth justice system and those with additional disabilities).

•          Participate in appropriate supervision systems, including carrying out clinical supervision with support workers, Band 7 Applied Psychologists, Trainee Clinical Psychologists, Assistant Psychologists, and professionals from other disciplines where appropriate. 

Planning and Organisational Skills

•          Effectively plan and prioritise the competing demands of caseloads, assessments, report writing and multi-professional working, on a daily basis. 

•          Carry out advanced planning of specialist assessments, interventions and reviews of the psychological needs of children, young people and their families with complex and severe mental health problems.

•          Be responsible for arranging and overseeing the timely delivery of specialist care packages targeting children and young people and their families with complex and severe mental health problems, following assessment and in liaison with other professionals.

•          Have the flexibility required to respond rapidly to unplanned work, such as urgent requests for assessment of a child or young person, for example in an acute hospital or residential care setting. 

•          Plan and organise specialist training covering a range of psychological approaches and issues relating to the management of children and young people with complex and severe mental health problems for delivery to multi-agency professional audiences and non-professional carers.

•          Plan and organise learning experiences for Trainee Clinical Psychologists on placement, making sure opportunities are relevant and delivered at the right level. 

Responsibility for Patients / Clients

•          To provide specialist psychological assessments for children and young people referred to the CAMHS based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semistructured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.

•          To formulate, implement and recommend plans to multi-disciplinary colleagues, professionals in other agencies and parents/carers for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy across the full range of care settings.

•          To be responsible for implementing a range of specialist psychological interventions with children, young people and their families with complex and severe mental health problems by demonstrating the ability to synthesise different explanatory models and adjust/refine psychological formulations to guide specialist interventions. 

•          To evaluate and make decisions about appropriate and evidencebased 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.

•          To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of children and young people with complex and severe mental health needs whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

•          To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

•          To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all children and young people known to the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

•          To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual children, young people and their families, and to provide advice to other professionals on the psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management. This includes contributing the CAMHS self harm and duty response rotas.

•          To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including young people, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care. 

•          Responsible with others for facilitating effective multi-disciplinary team working by providing psychological expertise and perspectives to optimise the effectiveness of assessment and treatment for individual clients, their carers and families.

•          Gather, interpret and report on appropriate outcome measures.

Policy and Service Responsibilities

•          To contribute to the development of effective interagency structures to enable joint planning and collaborative working relationships in relation to complex care decisions. The post holder will be responsible for ensuring the professional network have access to expert psychological frameworks to enable effective decision making and promote the most appropriate delivery of care to children and young people with complex and severe mental health problems.

•          Represent and promote CAMHS in relevant city or countywide strategy and operational planning forums, and raise awareness of its contribution to young people’s health and wellbeing.  

•          Contribute to the development, implementation and review of psychological therapies applied to children and young people with complex and severe mental health problems across services/settings within the Trust. 

 Research and Development

•          To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

•          Responsible for planning, executing and analysing relevant psychological research independently and/or in co-operation with others within CAMHS. 

•          Responsible for providing doctoral level clinical psychologists in training with research opportunities and acting as a field supervisor in respect of doctoral theses.

•          Co-operates with University and NHS colleagues in the planning and execution of relevant psychological research.

•          Communicates research findings to appropriate meetings, conferences and symposia at local and regional level.

•          When appropriate, submits research findings for publication in journals and other forms of professional communication.

•          Responsible for initiating and/or co-operating with MDT audit and service evaluation, as well as providing psychological statistical and research methodology expertise.

•          To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision. 

•          Contributes to teaching sessions for clinical psychology doctoral programmes at accredited regional courses.

•          Provides teaching on psychological/clinical matters to undergraduate students as appropriate and CAMHS staff locally, and regionally.

•          Responsible for providing training at all grade levels in psychological techniques and concepts to members of the CAMHS service and other professional staff in partner agencies.