Job overview

Hello, my name is James and I am the Team Manager of the Child, Family and Young People Service for Looked After and Adopted Children (CYFP LAAC).

We are pleased to share an exciting opportunity to recruit to a band 8a Clinical Psychologist within our LAAC Mental Health Team in Norfolk and Waveney. We would also welcome Preceptorship applications at a Band 7. This is full time substantive role. We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated clinician to join us and help us continue to ensure that we provide an excellent service for children who are in care, adopted or under SGO, and their carers and families.

What we do:

The LAAC team is a specialist service offering timely trauma informed mental health assessment and longer-term evidence-based therapy for children in care and adopted children where there are specific concerns around mental health.

We are in the process of developing our pathways model for the LAAC team. This pathway will sit closely alongside our CORE teams. The overarching therapeutic approach is based on a trauma informed dyadic or systemic clinical model. Some of the individual therapies used by the team include DDP, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Trauma and Attachment focussed Therapy, VIG, Trauma focused therapies including EMDR and TF-CBT, Play Therapy, Systemic Approaches and Mentalization Based Therapies. There will be opportunities for applicants to train in DDP.

Main duties of the job

To be part of an established team, and to support the delivery of exceptional trauma informed therapeutic support to children in care or adopted between the ages of 0-18 who are experiencing mental health difficulties in the context of their early childhood experiences.

• Undertaking comprehensive assessments of complex young people and their systems, developing meaningful formulations, and making highly skilled decisions which guide ongoing intervention options.
• Providing evidence-based interventions and treatment for children in care with a wide range of mental health presentations.
• To manage a clinical caseload as part of a multidisciplinary team (MDT).
• To undertake and contribute to complex risk assessment of complex cases within the team and to support the professional systems around the child or young person to address and positively manage risk.
• To confidently use psychometrics or other testing to assess and formulate cases.
• To contribute to the development of a response and effective therapeutic service within the team.
• To contribute to service development and projects within the team. 
• An opportunity to supervise trainees on placement within the team and supervise existing clinicians within the team. 
• To travel independently across Norfolk, each Clinician is allocated a specific locality to travel to (either, East, West or Central).

Working for our organisation

It is important to us that all staff share our values and core beliefs, and those of the NHS Constitution. We promote an environment of mutual respect, compassion, integrity and collaborative working. We are committed to diversity and inclusion and aim to attract and retain a candidate who is compassionate and committed to our trust values of working positively, respectfully, and together.

We are an improving Trust, with ambitious aspirations and we are making significant contributions to exciting transformation work that seeks to promote a shared responsibility for mental health of young people across various community health and social care services, education and the voluntary sector. We are keen to develop clinical leadership further, and would encourage your involvement in this.