Job summary
- Main area
- Psychology
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- 3 years (Fixed term 3 years)
- Hours
- Part time - 30 hours per week (Service needs will dictate working days in the contract)
- Job ref
- 363-SS7327259
- Employer
- East London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Newham CAMHS
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £61,631 - £68,623 Pro rata
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 17/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Senior Clinical Psychologist - Vanguard
NHS AfC: Band 8a
ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
Job overview
This is an exciting opportunity for a senior clinical/counselling psychologist (applications from other allied professionals with appropriate experience would also be considered e.g. mental health nurses, systemic practitioners/psychotherapists, art psychotherapists, drama psychotherapists etc.) to support the London Borough of Newham, in its delivery of The London Vanguard Community Multi-System Violence Reduction Programme. . This is an innovative role, working alongside the London Borough of Newham and local voluntary sector organisations, in helping to create systemic change across the borough.
The London Vanguard, working in partnership with London Councils and Directors of Children’s Services, NHS Violence Reduction Programme and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) providers has funding from NHSE to deliver the next three years of a targeted innovative pilot programme to children aged 0-25 and families who are most at risk of being involved in youth violence and/or exploitation. Newham is one such site for this important work.
Main duties of the job
We are seeking an enthusiastic, creative, CAMHS experienced, and motivated clinical/counselling psychologist (or allied health professional). The post holder will provide flexible highly specialist clinical intervention to young people and family members/carers who have been affected by serious youth violence and/or exploitation. This is a community-based post and requires experience and appreciation of some of the richness and complexities of working inter-culturally and a passion for working with young people who may be marginalised, oppressed and vulnerable within an inner-city London context and/or young people who are ‘gang-affected’. The post holder will work extensively with systems around young people, providing training, consultation, reflective practice and advocacy alongside direct work. Advocacy work may include utilising specialist psychological knowledge to support access to social resources e.g. housing, benefits, and to enhance young people’s experiences when navigating statutory services e.g. youth justice and health.
Working for our organisation
Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
We are looking for a clinician with an understanding of the needs of young people and their families where there are significant mental health issues, contextual safeguarding and a trauma-informed approach to serious youth violence from a systemic and community and/or liberation psychology perspective. It is hoped that the work being developed will generate youth-led solutions that are co-produced and responsive to the needs of young people in Newham so that they can begin to lead debates about the issues impacting their lives. The post holder will therefore understand co-production with young people, have understanding and experience of working with the community, voluntary sector, youth services and /or activist groups who work with the most marginalised young people.
The posts will form part of a well-established embedded CAMHS service within Newham, providing input to Newham Children’s Services, Education Settings; Youth Zones and Children’s Centres. The postholder will have a unique opportunity to work in partnership with and alongside other providers of support for young people throughout the borough. This provides a rich and creative backdrop for working in innovative, fresh and creative ways in order to meet the needs of the young people and their families and to promote understanding of mental health in the work of staff working across the Newham community.
Person specification
Experience
Essential criteria
- · Substantial post qualification experience of working as a clinical/counselling psychologist (or other allied health professional). Assessed experience of working at an equivalent to Band 7 or 8A level in child and adolescent mental health
- · Work within at least two therapeutic modalities.
- · Experience in working in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, including delivering specialist mental health interventions
- · Experience of working with complex networks.
- · Experience of working with children with challenging behaviour, their families and wider networks
- · Experience of working in inner city communities and awareness of the potential impact of health inequalities, discrimination, disadvantage on mental health. Able to provide a culturally competent service.
- · Experience of group work/community outreach
- · Experience in providing consultations.
- · Ability to provide services in community environments/spaces, to meet the needs of clients and contracted work.
- · An interest of developing expertise in community CAMHS work.
- · Knowledge and experience with working with safeguarding issues and serious mental health problems, including challenging behaviour
- · Experience in conducting risk assessment and risk management planning
- · Experience, skills and flexibility to contribute to and facilitate effective working within a multi-disciplinary team setting
- · Experience/knowledge of working in a multi-ethnic community and of working with interpreters
Desirable criteria
- · Experience of working with a wide variety of patient/client groups across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
- · Experience of working in other partner agencies (Local Authority, Voluntary Sector) as a CAMHS Practitioner
- · Experience of providing Community Mental health Approaches
- · Experience of teaching and training · Experience of providing clinical supervision · Service development experience
Education/ Qualification/ Training
Essential criteria
- Doctorate in Clinical Psychology or equivalence (statement of equivalence (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist)
- Or Doctorate in Counselling Psychology and able to demonstrate eligibility for BPS CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist)
- HCPC registration
- BPS accredited degree in psychology or equivalent
- Or, For allied health professionals, as applicable - full Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council HCPC, British Psychological Society BPS, United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy UKCP, the Association of Family Therapy AFT
- Or Nursing and Midwifery Council NMC
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria
- · Highly specialist skills in the use of complex methods of CAMHS assessment (including neurodevelopmental) and treatment of individuals, couples, families and groups, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
- · Ability to multi-task, prioritise and work flexibly according to need
- · Well-developed skills to communicate effectively, orally and in writing at an age appropriate level, complex, highly technical and /or clinically sensitive information to children, adolescents, their families, carers and professionals within and outside the NHS including reports for the Courts
- · Ability to communicate distressing and unwelcome information to children, adolescents and their families
- · Ability to work with a racially and culturally diverse community in a wide variety of contexts including highly specialist skills for working therapeutically in family homes
- · Ability to deal sensitively with stressful situations
- · Ability to cope with verbal abuse and to recognise and diffuse potential physical abuse from clients.
- · Ability to work within a multi-disciplinary team
- · Ability to work flexibly across service boundaries and CAMHS Tiers · Skills and ability to liaise effectively with other agencies and professionals
- · Advanced operational knowledge of the range of Outcome measures and approaches relevant in a CAMHS/community setting
- · Highly developed knowledge of how structural inequalities and contextual challenges interact with child and adolescent mental health problems/emotional wellbeing
Desirable criteria
- · Knowledge of social justice approaches to clinical and strategic work such as systemic approaches, community/ liberation psychology, narrative practices, Social Action Psychotherapy and Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM)
- · Ability to use supervision effectively · Ability to teach basic CAMHS concepts
Other
Essential criteria
- · Presentation/teaching skills
- · IT skills
Desirable criteria
- · Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
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
- Hannah Stringer
- Job title
- Lead Clinician - Vanguard
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 02084309000
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