Band 8a Safeguarding Lead for CAMHS - Bath

Job summary

An opportunity has arisen for an experienced and highly motivated Band 8a Safeguarding Lead for Children and Named Professional for CAMHS to join our dedicated Safeguarding Team at Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.

The role is Trustwide covering Named Professional for CAMHS in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset area as well as covering Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire as the Lead for Children.

Working closely with the Head of Safeguarding and Divisional managers, you will play a key leadership role in promoting and embedding high-quality safeguarding practice across the divisions, ensuring Children and Young People are protected and supported in line with current legislation, national guidance and best practice.

As a senior safeguarding professional, you will provide expert advice and leadership on a wide range of safeguarding and public protection matters, including the Children Act 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 and Safeguarding Children and Young People: roles and competencies for health care staff (Intercollegiate Document 2025). You will line manage a team of senior safeguarding practitioners.

You will work collaboratively with colleagues across health, social care and partner agencies, supporting complex safeguarding work, driving service improvement, contributing to assurance and governance processes, and helping to develop a culture where safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.

Main duties of the job

The named professional will be an advocate for children and young people within AWP to ensure that that safeguarding children remains a priority for staff delivering services. They will support the AWP Head of Safeguarding in ensuring that AWP/CAMHs is compliant with national and local legislation and protocols and commissioned standards and support staff to work to excellent standards of safeguarding children and maintain required competencies.

To support and advise operational managers in all matters relating to the management of safeguarding children within their portfolios. Supporting operational staff through the provision of robust specialist advice in line with relevant legislation and best practice guidance. They will work proactively with partners in other statutory agencies to develop working relationships to improve safeguarding of children.

Provide professional leadership, supervision, training and support to safeguarding professionals and wider Trust staff, promoting a culture where safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. Monitor safeguarding activity, undertake audits and quality improvement projects, analyse performance data and contribute to assurance reports for Trust committees, commissioners and regulatory bodies.

Deputise for the Head of Safeguarding as required and represent the Trust at internal and external safeguarding meetings, boards and partnerships.

About us

We are the lead provider of healthcare for people with serious mental illness, learning disabilities and autism across Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES), Swindon and Wiltshire, and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.We aim to provide High Quality, Compassionate Care everywhere, every day. This means our services will be safe, clinically effective and provide a positive all round experience for our patients, families and carers.

And we believe passionately in treating everyone with kindness, respect and empathy.Key to this is providing a supportive and safe environment for our 4,000 staff where we all feel welcome and able to do the best we can for those we support.

Our staff and teams work incredibly hard delivering services across more than 90 locations, covering 2,200miles, to more than 1.8million people.At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community.

We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Job responsibilities

Contributes as a member of the safeguarding team to the development of strong internal safeguarding/child protection policies, guidelines and protocols.

Supports the AWP Head of Safeguarding to ensure that structures, systems and processes are in place to support children known to AWP through adult service users or CAMHS are compliant with the Children Act 2004, Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023 and Safeguarding Children and Young People: roles and competencies for health care staff (Intercollegiate Document 2025).

Supports the AWP Head of Safeguarding in Quality Assurance, leading on assurance and improvement processes within CAMHS and ensuring think family approach is embedded across the whole of the AWP footprint contributing to statutory inspections. Provides specialist advice to practitioners, actively and reactively, including clarification about organisational policies, legal issues and the management of child protection cases.

Provides safeguarding/child protection supervision and supports and resources reflective practice, including peer review across CAMHS. Contributes to the development of work practices, protocols and guidelines within CAMHS to ensure that safeguarding children is embedded and prioritised.

Leads on planning, carrying out and disseminating findings from auditing safeguarding children processes within CAMHS. This role offers an excellent opportunity to influence safeguarding practice at a strategic and operational level, ensuring the delivery of high-quality safeguarding arrangements and improved outcomes for children and young people at risk. Please see Job Description for full details

Person Specification

Education and

Qualification · Essential

Registered Nurse with substantial practice experience, in a specialist safeguarding role. Evidence of ongoing, relevant professional development Management Qualification or evidence of equivalent experience / training

Desirable

Specific post-registration training in Safeguarding at a Specialist level (e.g. Children and Adult Safeguarding training Level 4) Experience and

Knowledge · Essential

Experience of working collaboratively with other health and social care providers, and ability to promote strong working partnerships Demonstrable ability to make appropriate assessments, plan interventions, have knowledge of resources, make plans including review and evaluation. Experience in planning, delivering and evaluating training. Personal drive and tenacity to motivate, empower and support individuals and teams to achieve. Strong negotiation and influencing skills and ability to deal with conflict, hostility and vulnerability.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab) . From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab) .

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).