Psychological Therapist for the CAMHS Pediatric Liaison Team

The brand new service aims to focus on the mind/body interface, providing psychological assessment and support to young people and their families experiencing mental health difficulties in the context of the child's physical health condition.

We are seeking a full-time, or two part-time (2.5 days a week) Band 8a CAMHS Psychological Therapist (Clinical/Counselling Psychologist; Systemic Therapist; Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist) who has a keen interest in this important and growing field.

The post holder will support acute colleagues in formulating the psychological barriers to physical care, and psychological management of physical symptoms such as pain, within the team. As well as contributing to wider discussion of complex cases within the acute setting and outpatient teams.

The team will work with CYP from 0 (parents/carers) up to their 18th birthday, so therapists need skills at delivering assessments and interventions with this age range.

The post-holder will be based across the two acute hospitals in Hertfordshire, Watford and Lister in Stevenage. A hybrid model of agile, virtual and face to face working is in practice. Assessments and Interventions will take place within the hospital setting, either on the ward, in A&E or in outpatient clinics, across the two sites, so a car driver with access to a car is essential (unless the candidate is unable due to a disability). There are professional links across Hertfordshire, with structures in place for supervision and governance. There are also strong links with local University Courses with opportunities for contributing to teaching and taking trainees on placement, once the service is established.

This is an exciting opportunity for CAMHS Psychological Therapist with an interest in this very specialist field to contribute to the delivery and on-going development of the CAMHS Paediatric Liaison Service.

Part time working and Job shares will be considered.

For further details / informal visits contact:
Jane Fullard CAMHS Paediatric Liaison Leadjane.fullard1@nhs.net07977607600

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is an outstanding organization with ambitions to match. We are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of ‘Outstanding’ from the Care Quality Commission, and our aim is to be the leading provider of mental health and specialist learning disability services in the country.

Our family of over 3500 members of staff provide health and social care for over 400,000 people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. We also deliver a range of nationally commissioned specialist services including Tier 4 services for children and young people, perinatal services, plus medium and low secure learning disabilities services.

The care we provide makes a fantastic difference to the lives of our service users, their families and carers - everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout:

Our Trust values are:
Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.

These values are at the core of who we are, everything we do, and how we do it!

Would you like to be part of the HPFT family? Would you like work with us to ensure our service users live the fullest lives possible they can? Would you like to be supported in your career to be the best that you can be?

Then please read on…”
Job Summary
To deliver a high quality service working with adolescents and their families/carers and to professionals from other organisations to ensure practices that respond effectively to both individual and service need.

The post holder will be autonomously responsible for assessing and delivering intervention to children, young people and families in relation to a range of highly complex emotional, psychological and behavioural problems within the context of paediatric liaison.

This will include children and young people who present to hospital with psychological difficulties related to physical illness or those with psychological problems presenting initially with physical symptoms, as well as to those who present with medically unexplained symptoms i.e. physical presentations of psychological difficulties.

This includes the provision of specialist advice, holistic consultation, mental health assessment, liaison with other agencies.

The post-holder will work within professional guidelines and under the clinical/professional supervision of senior clinicians of own and other professions.

The post-holder will provide clinical/professional supervision to trainees on placement, more junior staff of the same discipline and multi-disciplinary colleagues for purposes of training and continuing professional development.

The post holder will contribute to research, audit and evaluation for service development.

All staff should comply with the Trust’s Anti-Discriminatory Statement, Employee Charter, Trust Policies and Procedures, Code of Conduct and Equality and Diversity.

Job Responsibilities

• To ensure the systematic provision of a highly specialist therapeutic thinking and interventions to CYP and their families, within acute hospitals, within the context of the principles CYP-IAPT, providing brief interventions and contributing to Specific/Specialist work including contributing to provision of a specific model of evidence-based therapeutic intervention for children and young people in the hospital(for example Specialist provision of Systemic Therapy, Child Psychotherapy, CBT, IPT).
• To provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on CYP’s psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues, professionals from other agencies, the acute hospitals and to other non-professional carers.
• To work effectively as a fully integrated member of the CAMHS Paediatric Liaison Team, including taking an active part in MDT meetings.
• To provide clinical/professional supervision to less experienced practitioners within the CAMHS Paediatric Liaison Team.
• To provide placements to trainee therapists.
• To work autonomously within professional practice guidelines and Trust policies and procedures.
• To propose and implement policy and service development, undertake research, service evaluation and audit for own team/service and to contribute to the training of clinical/counselling psychologists and others. All staff should comply with the Trust’s Anti-Discriminatory Statement, Employee Charter, Trust Policies and Procedures, Code of Conduct and Equality and Diversity.

For full details of the role and responsibilities for this vacancy please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification documents attached.