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Job summary

Main area
Family Therapy
Grade
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Contract
Permanent
Hours
  • Part time
  • Job share
22.5 hours per week (part time)
Job ref
391-RFL-7821557
Employer
Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
Queen Mary's House Eating Disorders Clinic
Town
Hampstead
Salary
£72,921 - £83,362 per annum pro rata inclusive of HCAS
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
01/04/2026 23:59

Employer heading

NHS

Band 8b Lead Family Therapist, CAMHS Eating Disorders Service

NHS AfC: Band 8b

Our trust has over 17,000 staff serving 2 million patients every year. It comprises Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital, North Middlesex University Hospital and more than 30 services in the community.  This larger scale organisation provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to continue our pioneering work, particularly in finding ways to deliver even better care to our patients.

Our mission is to deliver world class care and expertise in our clinical services, underpinned by world class teaching and research and we will continue to measure our progress against our five governing objectives: excellent outcomes, excellent patient and staff experience, excellent value for taxpayers’ money, being safe and meeting our external duties, and building a strong organisation.

Everyone is welcome at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. We're proud of our diversity and we continue to undertake new initiatives to advance equality for LGBT+, BME, gender equality, staff carers and people with disabilities and lived experiences to promote good relations and understanding between our staff.

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.

Click here to view our video Welcome to the Royal Free


 

Job overview

The Royal Free CAMHS Eating Disorder Service provides outpatient, intensive day patient, and short-term medical inpatient admission treatment for young people diagnosed with eating disorders. The Eating Disorder Service utilises evidence-based approaches to ED in a range of group, individual and family therapies, working alongside both mainstream and hospital education provision. 

The post holder will provide clinical expertise and specialist therapeutic interventions with specific emphasis on eating disorders to referred patients and their families within the Child & Adolescent Eating Disorders Service. This will include systemically informed assessment and treatment, delivering the FT-AN treatment model as well as the provision of parent support, group work, and some individual work.  The post holder will also provide consultation from a systemic perspective on clients’ psychological care to other colleagues within the team and wider professional network. Alongside delivering FT AN informed treatment, the post holder will be required to deliver Systemic Family Therapy where necessary to enhance treatment outcomes.

 

Main duties of the job

·    To join with multidisciplinary colleagues in the creation and enhancement of thoughtful and careful formulations, involving the voice and contribution of the family, and drawing on core systemic principles which attend to difference and power within the context of the complex physical and psychological impacts of an eating disorder.

·  In conjunction with the specialist multidisciplinary team assess the suitability of a systemic intervention including the capacity of the individual, family and network to support family therapy.

·       The post-holder will be responsible for carrying out systemic family therapy assessments, bearing in mind highly complex factors concerning family history, the physical and developmental needs, devising a detailed care plan and providing specialised family therapy interventions using a range of therapeutic skills and knowledge involving observation and systemic techniques.

  To communicate with the family, referrer, other professionals and the specialist multidisciplinary team in a sensitive and skilled manner information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans, and co-ordinate a care package appropriate for the client’s needs.

·       The post-holder will be a key clinician within the FT-AN Assessment clinic for new referrals, and will be responsible for delivering the FT-AN model with efficacy to patients and their parents in a timely, efficient and sensitive manner, working alongside professional colleagues.

·      

Working for our organisation

Our trust has over 17,000 staff serving 2 million patients every year. It comprises Barnet Hospital, Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital, North Middlesex University Hospital and more than 30 services in the community.  This larger scale organisation provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to continue our pioneering work, particularly in finding ways to deliver even better care to our patients.

Our mission is to deliver world class care and expertise in our clinical services, underpinned by world class teaching and research and we will continue to measure our progress against our five governing objectives: excellent outcomes, excellent patient and staff experience, excellent value for taxpayers’ money, being safe and meeting our external duties, and building a strong organisation.

Everyone is welcome at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. We're proud of our diversity and we continue to undertake new initiatives to advance equality for LGBT+, BME, gender equality, staff carers and people with disabilities and lived experiences to promote good relations and understanding between our staff.

Click here to view our video Welcome to the Royal Free

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached job description for more information about this role and working at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.

Person specification

Royal Free World Class Values

Essential criteria
  • • Demonstrable ability to meet the Trust Values

Education & professional Qualifications

Essential criteria
  • • Relevant core profession within Health and Social Care and education profession
  • • Post-graduate training in Systemic and Family Psychotherapy as accredited by the Association of Family Therapy (AFT).
  • • UKCP registration
  • • Minimum of 3 years post qualification experience
Desirable criteria
  • • AFT Approved Systemic Supervisor

Experience

Essential criteria
  • • Skills in the use of complex methods of systemic assessment, intervention and management.
  • • Experienced in oral presentations, working with people in groups.
  • • Experience of the application of therapy in different cultural contexts.
  • • Substantial post-qualification supervised systemic clinical experience.
  • • Ability to work as a member of a multidisciplinary team located in the community or health care setting.
  • • Experience of eating disorders specialist systemic assessment and treatment for referred clients and their families.
  • • Experience of working with a wide variety of children, adolescents and their parents across a whole age range of presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
Desirable criteria
  • • High level knowledge of the theory and practice of short and long term therapeutic interventions with individuals and families and its application to Eating Disorders
  • • Experience in audit and/or research methods.

Skills and aptitudes

Essential criteria
  • • Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and adolescents including Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults Policies and Procedures.
  • • Knowledge of NHS, Social Care and Education Structures, National policies and procedures
  • • Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS. This would involve using easy to understand language to convey systemic ideas and assumptions
  • • Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
  • • Evidence of continuing professional development.
  • • Awareness of the implications of working within a managed system
Desirable criteria
  • • Knowledge of regulatory frameworks in relation to the patient group

Personal Qualities & attributes

Essential criteria
  • • Enthusiastic about family therapy in Eating Disorder and CAMHS settings.
  • • Ability to tolerate anxiety without recourse to premature action whist appreciating the role of the supervisor
  • • Able to use time effectively and prioritise workload
  • • Ability to be reflective about own practice and style

Others

Essential criteria
  • • Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting, with evidence of ability to communicate in a way that is understood by professionals without any psychological training
  • • Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
  • • Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
  • • Interest in and ability to contribute to service development.
  • • Commitment to the strategic aims of the trust and the UCL partners academic health sciences partnership
  • • Ability to demonstrate using systemic skills and knowledge in CAMHS settings
  • • Basic IT skills including word processing, use of email and internet
  • • Mental and Emotional Effort - Concentrating on therapeutic session

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Nursing TimesApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleDisability confident employerTimewise PartnerCare Quality Commission - Requires improvementEnei MemberArmed Forces Covenant

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

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Jenny Shepherd
Job title
Senior Family Therapist
Email address
[email protected]

If you have problems applying, contact

Address
Service Excellence Team
Telephone
If you have any queries, please contact NLPSS Recruitment Helpdesk tel. 020 3758 2060
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