Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1.  To work within the appropriate Child Protection, Deliberate Self Harm, Substance Misuse guidelines, for own cases and the provision of appropriate advice in supervision and consultation. This includes reporting to and liaising appropriately with the multi-disciplinary service and external agency staff (e.g. CAMHS colleagues, and those in education, adult mental health and primary health, hospital staff, the Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, the named child protection worker, the Substance misuse Worker and Social Service staff).

2.    To continually monitor and evaluate risk to/from children and young people in own caseload and during supervision/consultation discussions, which may be due to Child Protection concerns, Deliberate Self Harm or other risky behaviour (e.g. running away, substance misuse, causing harm to others and disturbance in very young children where parenting issues may constitute a risk to the child.).

3.   To provide highly specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapy assessment for children and adolescents with severe, highly complex and persistent mental health problems and make decisions about treatment options taking into account relevant evidence-based research, theory, practice and highly complex factors concerning historical and development processes which have shaped the child/adolescent, their parents/carers and family.

4.   To provide highly specialist short, medium and long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children and adolescents with severe, complex and persistent mental health problems. Often these are children and young people who have not responded to other forms of specialist treatment and who, it is recognised, need a more intensive and in-depth therapy to reach their deep-rooted mental health difficulties.

5.   To provide highly specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic assessment and support for parents/carers who may be vulnerable and may have mental health problems. Often these are parents/carers who have not responded to or been able to access specialised therapy in adult services. This work requires mental effort and frequent exposure to highly distressing and highly emotional interactions in order to enable the children of such parents/carers to make use of psychotherapy offered to them.

6.    To provide highly specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment for families who present with complex and persistent problems.

7.    To collaborate and join with other team members to provide specialist clinical services, e.g.  Specialist emotional state and cognitive assessments, Narrative stems Assessments, specialist group work and assessment and treatment of trauma and depression.

8.    To participate in regular reviews and ongoing discussion of cases of children in treatment with other members of the multi-disciplinary team and where appropriate, co-ordinate and organise network meetings with professionals from other agencies and the voluntary sector.

9.   The above treatment functions will be extended according to the agreed policy and practice of the team to include group work, family work and work with parents as appropriate.

10.  To use, as required, a range of theoretical and practical knowledge acquired over a significant period of time (e.g. psychoanalytical theory and practice in work with children/adolescents, their parents/carer and families; systems theory and practice in working with families, carers and networks; attachment theory and practice in working with children/adolescents and their parents/carers) and developments in attachment and neurobiology 

11.  To ensure the use of comprehensive risk assessments and safety planning in day to day practice and as part of the duty system in the service.

12.  To exercise autonomous professional responsibility based on the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics of the Association of Child Psychotherapists.

13.  To contribute to the Duty Rota in Greenwich CAMHS, offering emergency assessments and, where appropriate, 7 Day Follow Ups to young people presenting in crisis (contribution to be agreed through discussion with Service Manager and Lead Child Psychotherapist).