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Job summary

Main area
Family Therapy
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 8a
Contract
Permanent: N/a
Hours
Part time - 22 hours per week
Job ref
455-NLFT-8222413
Employer
North London NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
CAMHS Holly Oak
Town
Edgware
Salary
£63,665 - £70,887 per annum including HCAS (pro-rata)
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
20/10/2026 23:59

Employer heading

North London NHS Foundation Trust logo

Systemic Family Psychotherapist (Band 8a)

NHS AfC: Band 8a

Thank you for your interest in North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT).

As of 1 April 2026, NLFT has formally merged with Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust—marking the start of an exciting new chapter. This is a unique opportunity to join a forward-thinking organisation at a time of transformation, where we are strengthening access to mental health services, responding more effectively to complex and specialist needs, and advancing our work in education, research and innovation.

By bringing together our combined expertise, we are building a stronger, more collaborative Trust—one that delivers consistent, high-quality care and improved outcomes for the diverse communities we serve.

At the heart of our approach is The North London Way. We are committed to:

  • Working collaboratively at every level, guided by our shared values
  • Shaping a positive, inclusive culture where staff and service users thrive
  • Empowering our teams with the skills, tools and autonomy to drive meaningful change
  • Delivering excellence and continuously improving the quality of care we provide
  • Embedding research, innovation and technology across our services
  • Taking a trauma-informed approach in everything we do

We are proud to be an inclusive employer that values diversity. We actively welcome applicants from all backgrounds, particularly from our local communities, and are committed to creating opportunities for everyone—including apprentices, veterans and care leavers.

The North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.

Our trust website is:  https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/ 

As a values‑driven Trust, we recruit through our values. Our selection processes focus on behaviours, attitudes, and examples that reflect our organisational values and commitment to compassionate, high‑quality care.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role.

We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants. However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey.

Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit  https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1.

North London NHS Foundation Trust is committed to ensuring that its recruitment processes are carried out with integrity, transparency, and fairness for all applicants. To help maintain these standards, we ask candidates to provide accurate and truthful information throughout the recruitment process.

If incorrect or misleading information is identified, this may affect the progression of an application, any employment offer, or continued employment. As part of our due diligence, the company may verify the information provided by applicants and take appropriate action where necessary.

We do not charge applicants any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including applications, interviews, sponsorship arrangements, pre-employment checks, or employment offers. All vacancies are advertised through TRAC/NHS Jobs and candidates are assessed solely on their skills, qualifications, experience, and suitability for the role. If you are asked to make a payment in connection with an NHS job opportunity, please treat this as suspicious and contact the organisation directly using the details published on our official career's website.

Applicants can refer to the Fraud Act 2006 for further information: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/contents

Job overview

 

Would you like to join a warm, welcoming, inclusive, and diverse core generic team within Barnet CAMHS, committed to delivering high-quality care to children, young people, and families?

If so, we would love to hear from you.


About the Role

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Band 8a Specialist Family &  Systemic Psychotherapist to work across Barnet Generic CAMHS team, based at Edgware Community Hospital.

Barnet CAMHS is an increasing diverse multidisciplinary 0–18 service providing care for children and young people experiencing moderate to severe emotional and mental health difficulties, including complex presentations and a range of neurodevelopmental needs. Our approach is compassionate, creative, flexible, evidence-based, and systemically informed, with a strong focus on supporting families and carers.

Main duties of the job


What You’ll Be Doing

In this role, you will:

  • Lead family therapy clinics
  • Provide clinical supervision to junior family therapists, systemic practitioners and / or psychological therapists
  • Provide systemic family therapy treatments as part of  regular family therapy clinics and as a sole systemic family therapist
  • Provide generic  CAMHS assessments
  • Participate in the developments and running of groups eg NVR or  multi family groups
  • Work closely with our partnership agencies in THRIVE informed pathways
  • Participate and contribute in multidisciplinary teams, reflective process groups and regular systemic discipline meetings
  • Access a variety of training opportunities of the North London Foundation trust which now also includes the Tavistock and Portman clinic
  • Contribute to clinical governance, service development, and quality improvement, including audits and research.
  • Develop and deliver training aligned with systemic practice and specialist areas.

Working for our organisation

North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) is committed to improving mental health care across North London to deliver excellent services to our local people.

Our Five-Year Strategy:  

  1.  We will provide consistently high-quality care closer to home.
  2. With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all
  3. We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.
  4.  We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology. 

Why NLFT?

  • We develop and retain our staff through leadership behaviours and managers programme and many more opportunities.
  • We promote flexible working and support staff with a range of health and wellbeing initiatives.
  • NHS Discounts, generous annual leave and NHS pension scheme
  • Excellent internal staff network
  •  

In order to meet the needs of the Trust you may be required from time to time to work at different locations to your normal place of work. This may mean that you are required to work at any location that fall under Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey or Islington. The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

 

Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification for more information on the role requirements and duties.

Person specification

education

Essential criteria
  • Professional qualification in a mental health or social welfare discipline or agreed Association of Family & Systemic Psychotherapy (AFSP) equivalent. An AFSP recognised four year training leading to a qualification in Systemic Psychotherapy/Family Therapy. United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) Registration (Systemic)
Desirable criteria
  • Post-qualification training in one or more additional specialised areas of therapeutic practice Specialist training in supervision that has led to accredited clinical supervisor status

Experience

Essential criteria
  • Minimum four years practice in relevant first profession. Assessed experience of working as a qualified systemic family psychotherapist for a minimum of three years, including at least 3 years post qualification experience within the designated specialty where the post is located. Experience of specialist systemic assessment, formulation and intervention with individuals and families when a child as complex needs
  • Experience of working with a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse with a wide variety of client groups across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity. Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for systemic care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan
  • Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team Experience of working with a range of childhood disorders at the acute and chronic stage. Experience of self-harm assessment and intervention with both individuals and their families Experience of risk assessment and risk Experience of using outcome measures. Experience of involving service users.
Desirable criteria
  • Experience of working with people (children and families) of all ages. Experience of teaching, training &/or supervision. Experience of the application of systemic psychotherapy in different cultural contexts. Experience of developing services.

Skills

Essential criteria
  • Excellent interpersonal skills. Ability to manage working in highly complex situations where there are multiple difficulties, competing views about those difficulties, and take a lead in creating contexts that develop systemic rapport, and harness the abilities of others in developing resources and solutions. Appreciation of the interface between personal and professional lives, high level of self-awareness and knowledge of principles of self-care. Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations in public, professional and academic settings. Ability to assess and manage risk. Ability to recognise and challenge any form of discrimination.
  • Excellent interpersonal skills. Ability to manage working in highly complex situations where there are multiple difficulties, competing views about those difficulties, and take a lead in creating contexts that develop systemic rapport, and harness the abilities of others in developing resources and solutions. Appreciation of the interface between personal and professional lives, high level of self-awareness and knowledge of principles of self-care. Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations in public, professional and academic settings. Ability to assess and manage risk. Ability to recognise and challenge any form of discrimination. Ability to identify and employ methods of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour. Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by AFSP and UKCP. Ability to be part of the recruitment process and

Employer certification / accreditation badges

NHS Pastoral Care Quality AwardVeteran AwareApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleJob share policyAge positiveImproving working livesCare quality commission - GoodArmed Forces Covenant Gold AwardMindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employerCare Leaver CovenantStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.Step into healthAccredited Living Wage Employer

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.

Application numbers

This vacancy may close early if it receives a high number of applications. Please complete and submit your application in good time to avoid disappointment.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Emma Fassett
Job title
Generic Team Manager
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
020 8702 4500
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