Job summary
- Main area
- Clinical Psychologist
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- Fixed term: 2 years (Temporary contract for pilot project)
- Hours
- Part time - 22.5 hours per week (Wednesday-Friday)
- Job ref
- 455-NLFT-0181
- Employer
- North London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Enfield Vanguard
- Town
- Enfield, London
- Salary
- 8A full time equivalent + outer London weighting
- Closing
- 30/06/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Clinical Psychologist and Project Lead
NHS AfC: Band 8a
Thank you for your interest in the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT). This is an exciting time to join us and be part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we:
- Collaborate at every level by living our values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
- Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
- Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
- Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
- Ensure that research, quality improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
- Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do
We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer. We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.
The North London Way to deliver, Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.
Our trust website is: https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/
Job overview
This is unique opportunity to contribute to delivering and developing an innovative pilot service for 0–25-year-olds at risk of or affected by youth violence. This role is part of the North Central London Vanguard commissioned by NHS England to develop a model of care for young people who may be gang affected. The service adopts a holistic and multi-agency integrated approach based on the understanding that no individual service has the solution for the complex issues facing some young people. The service draws largely on community psychology, narrative, attachment-based principles and AMBIT approaches. The team is made up of Clinical Psychologists, Caseworkers and Creative Practitioners. As a partnership service we draw on a strong collective of shared values that enable us to work collaboratively to support young people. The team deliver accessible evidence-based and holistic mental health interventions in environments where young people feel in control and safe, including a community youth homelessness hub, prisons, other community spaces and young people’s homes. Recognising the contextual factors that affect wellbeing, interventions are targeted across all different areas of a young person’s life (e.g., emotional, social, relational, occupational, etc.).
The post holder will be part of the ongoing pilot project, commissioned by NHSE, initially on a fixed term 2- year contract.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of the Enfield Vanguard project and providing clinical leadership for the project, ensuring that the clinical and strategic priorities are taken forward in an agreed and coherent way. The post holder will be working closely with the team, families and multi-agency professionals to improve emotional and holistic well-being for young people. This role has a specific focus on supporting young people who find it hard to trust services, offering practical support alongside and emotional interventions and supporting the wider network around the young person to improve their wellbeing and reduce barriers to accessing health and social care services.
The post holder will be part of the clinical leadership team across the NCL Vanguard Service, working closely with senior management in ensuring the delivery of highly innovative and adaptive evidence-based care. Alongside individual clinical work, the service works across multiple levels, seeking to shift how the wider system perceives and works with young people, hoping to address inequalities to create sustainable change. Embracing new ways of working will be key, as the model constantly evolves to respond to the needs and aspirations of young people it serves.
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:
- We will provide consistently high-quality care closer to home.
- With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all
- We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.
- We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology.
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
- To provide clinical and professional leadership in the setting up and delivery of the Enfield London Vanguard.
- To manage and oversee a small multi-disciplinary team to provide highly specialist psychological and psychometric assessment, formulation and intervention including risk assessment and the development of risk management plans to Enfield Vanguard service users in individual, group or family settings.
- To be responsible for the clinical management and risk management within the Enfield Project under the guidance of the NCL Vanguard delivery lead.
- To take full responsibility for initiating, formulating and implementing highly specialised and innovative plans for the psychological treatment and/or management of a young person’s mental health needs and wider contextual needs. To regularly review care plans for service users.
- To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals and groups and to evaluate and make decisions about the intervention options available. This will involve interpretation and integration of complex psychological data and competing or contradictory theories/hypotheses from professionals from other agencies.
- To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and intervention approaches for young people
- To act as a lead professional for young people, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans. This will involve offering staff from other agencies guidance on mental health and trauma informed care.
- To contribute in an active way to the network of services for young people affected by violence and to ensure the co-ordination of services provided. This will involve working closely with colleagues from other agencies.
- To act as the care co-ordinator and case manager for young people within the service.
- To develop, facilitate and deliver creative well-being group-based activities and interventions that are grounded in psychological theory and principles or to support the delivery of groups alongside other team members or professionals. This may include offering wellbeing groups within partnerships organisations including custody settings
This is not an exhaustive list, please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification for more information on the role requirements and duties.
Person specification
Education and Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology.
- Registration with HCPC.
- Advanced training in at least two therapeutic modalities
Desirable criteria
- Relevant additional specialist training/qualifications related to clinical psychology and/or complex trauma interventions
Experience and Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Considerable experience of working directly with young people with complex mental health needs who have had contact with the criminal justice system. For example, working with a Youth Justice Team, Looked After Children Services or CAMHS service
- Experience working with young people and families affected by serious youth violence and/or working directly within court, custody or prison settings.
- Experience in delivering co-produced social action or service development projects.
- Experience of adapting evidence based practise to support young people with psychological difficulties and / or facing extremely challenging circumstances with complex mental health needs. For example, refugees and asylum seekers, young people who are affected by homelessness
- Experience of delivering flexible and creative group interventions
- Experience delivering staff reflective or formulation sessions and staff teaching and training
- Evidence of a high level of competent and autonomous practice in delivering therapeutic interventions
- Experience of providing direct line management to a small team and managing team caseloads
- Understanding of monitoring outcomes and reporting back to funders
- Considerable experience providing practical support, such as support with housing, benefits and employment.
Desirable criteria
- Advanced skills in Attachment/mentalisation based approaches, Narrative Therapy or Community Psychology
- Experience of monitoring budgets; understanding of financial forecasting and reporting
- Experience of managing projects and leading teams
- Experience of setting up systems for outcome monitoring and user involvement in contributing to service development
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of youth work, family work and/or community support work.
- Detailed knowledge of relevant legislation (i.e. Homelessness Guidance, Children’s Act).
Skills and Abilities
Essential criteria
- Extensive clinical experience including individual and group interventions and staff support.
- Ability to confidently manage an independent clinical caseload and effective multidisciplinary
- Skills in developing, managing and coordinating psychological interventions with young people who do not initially seek help.
- Extensive knowledge of at least two specialised psychological therapies for example narrative therapy, Systemic Models etc.
- Experience of working collaboratively with both internal teams and external community services and stakeholders.
- Experience in risk assessment and management of both individual and community risks. Confident in being responsible for risk management for a small team.
- Experience in developing and delivering training packages and consultation/reflective practice spaces for staff from a range of professional backgrounds
- Ability to manage a range of tasks in order to meet agreed priorities and deadlines; ability to monitor, review, evaluate and report progress.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and supervised practice of individual interventions with young people affected by youth violence in a community setting.
- Experience of working in the voluntary sector, local authority or partnership services.
- Experience in developing culturally sensitive and supportive spaces, groups and workshops within community settings. A commitment to and skills in, culturally sensitive practice.
- Knowledge of research methodology as practised within the mental health field, including complex multivariate data analysis as practised within the mental health field
- The ability to originate, introduce and be open to, new practices, concepts, ideas and change and to creatively solve problems
Personal qualities
Essential criteria
- Commitment to co-production and trauma informed working.
- Flexible, engaging and approachable person who can work quickly and responsively with both clients and the multidisciplinary team.
- Demonstrable resourcefulness and skills in problem solving.
- Ability to contain work with organisational stress and ability to hold the stress of others.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging social contexts.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of initiating and developing creative projects such as community exhibitions, articles or productions.
- Values that are rooted in equity, social justice and accessibility.
Other Key Requirements
Essential criteria
- Ability to carry out travel around the designated area of work and to work flexible and sometimes antisocial hours as the needs of the job dictate.
- Knowledge of local policies in respect of safeguarding children and the protection of vulnerable adults.
- Ability to accompany young people to appropriate appointments.
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
- Dr charlotte wilson
- Job title
- Clinical Psychologist and Enfield Project Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07392191622
- Additional information
Dr Fatima Bibi - Vanguard Delivery Lead - [email protected]
Dr Lucy Gore - Principle Clinical Psychologist - [email protected]
List jobs with North London NHS Foundation Trust in Allied Health Professions or all sectors