CAMHS Practitioner

Job Overview

We are seeking a passionate and innovate clinician to join the Enhanced Treatment Team within Kensington and Chelsea CAMHs service.

The Enhanced Treatment Team is a specialist sub-team that sits within the wider CAMHs service. We are a friendly and dynamic team, made up of psychology, psychiatry, family therapy, DBT/CBT and child psychotherapy. Enhanced clinicians hold a small though complex caseload, supporting families, young people and their networks where there may be significant trauma, complex risk and social adversity. Additionally, we offer consultation to the wider team where there are issues of clinical complexity requiring our expertise.

The young people referred to our sub-team require more intensive and responsive support, meaning that working flexibly, creatively and proactively is essential. The role will involve case- holding a complex caseload of families and young people, in a way that foregrounds therapeutic principles and practices. We are therefore seeking a clinician who has an interest and commitment to working under this framework.

Main duties of the job

We are looking for a suitably qualified and highly motivated individual with a range of assessment skills and significant experience of supporting children, young people and their carers, as well as experience of working with professionals from other agencies. We particularly encourage applications from Family Therapists and Psychologists. We would develop and support allied health professionals from other backgrounds wishing to work in this way.

The postholder will be supervised by either the lead family therapist or psychologist, dependent on their clinical background and expertise. There will be opportunities to join our fortnightly family therapy clinic should the post holder wish to develop their systemic practice. We have much innovative practice in the service such as Open Dialogue, parent groups, reflective practice and QI projects and we would welcome participation and/or development of other clinical initiatives.

This postholder will be required take on either a safeguarding lead role, domestic abuse specialist advisor or Participation lead. This role requires on-site working with the possibility of working from home for one day a week. Presence is required in the clinic on Tuesdays & Fridays.

Working for our organisation

We're passionate about delivering first-class patient-centred, safe and effective care in a community setting, we will also adapt our offer where needed and liaise with schools or complete home visits if required. Patients are at the heart of everything we do. Providing top quality care depends on our ability to employ the best people. We are always looking to recruit outstanding people who will go the extra mile to support our young persons, colleagues, teams and the Trust.

With every new employee we are hoping to find our future leaders and well support our staff by providing opportunities to develop your career. With a diverse culture and equally diverse range of opportunities across mental health, community services, emotional disorder, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Enhancement Treatment, learning disabilities and more whatever stage of your career you're at, there's always a place for you at CNWL.

You will work from Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm service for young people experiencing mental health problems in Kensington and Chelsea.

To find out more about working in CAMHS please CLICK HERE  for one of our CAMHS video

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

Please see attached JD&PS for full details of duties and responsibilities

• Provide generic assessments of children and young people with complex Mental Health and Social Care needs.
• Formulate and implement Care plans for the treatment and/or management of the child/young person’s problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework, and NICE guidelines.
• Be responsible for implementing a range of therapy interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across CAMHS. These will include long and short-term interventions as appropriate to need.
• Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options with MD Team considering therapeutic models and complex factors concerning that have shaped the individual, family or group.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of children and young people.
• Provide specialist expertise, advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to children and young people’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• Contribute directly and indirectly to a framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all children and young people of the service, across all settings and agencies serving children and young people with learning disabilities and mental health problems/challenging behaviour
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual children and young people and to provide advice to other professions on risk assessment and risk management
• Act as care coordinator/lead professional, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of CAMHS care plans including children and young people, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
• Communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of children and young people under CAMHS care and to monitor progress during the course of their treatment.

Person specification

Education And Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Post-graduate training and qualification a therapeutic discipline
• Registration with one of the following statutory bodies: Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC); the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP); the Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC); Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP); the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)

Desirable criteria

• Post-qualification training in additional CAMHS related specialised work
• Recent Safeguarding children training
• CYP IAPT training
• Qualification in core mental health or social welfare profession (e.g. social work, mental health nursing, psychology, occupational therapy) and significant post qualification experience

Previous Experience

Essential criteria

• Post qualification experience of working within a multidisciplinary team and preferably CAMHS team
• Experience of working with complex cases.
• Experience of Community based clinical work
• Experience of offering consultation to external agencies in the community.
• Experience of delivering CPD & training to non CAMHS professionals
• Able to deliver parent training and groups
• Experience of developing and delivering clinical training to colleagues

Desirable criteria

• Fluent in an additional language
• Experience in supervising as Family Therapist

Core Competencies

Essential criteria

• Able to confidently and competently undertake generic and emergency CAMHS assessment
• Understands developmental issues for children and able to adapt interventions accordingly
• Understands the need for and able to competently assess risk
• Understands individual and service safeguarding responsibilities, policy and procedure
• Understands the elements of effective engagement and can apply these to working practice
• Demonstrates excellent written and verbal communication
• Able to foster strong therapeutic alliances
• Understanding of and commitment to the principles and practices of CYP IAPT
• Understanding of and commitment to service user involvement, patient led care and choice
• Understands the need for and has experience of undertaking family and parenting work as part of CAMHS support
• Understands the importance of assessment that explores and considers individual cultural identity and associated support needs.
• Experience of providing consultation and liaison support to colleagues, referral agencies and services responsible for the care, support and wellbeing of service users and their families/carers
• Able to promote self management and recovery by working with service users and their families to understand their condition and identify and reinforce strengths, resources and coping skills
• Able to work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team, actively engaging in and supporting duty and emergency rota’s, peer support, training and skills development
• Able to confidently and safely plan for and manage change and transition
• Actively uses supervision and opportunities for development of skills

Desirable criteria

• Experience of running parenting groups (triple p, mellow, Webster Stratton, etc) and other types of group work group such as multi- family group

Skills

Essential criteria

• Microsoft Office (Word, Excel)
• Clinical Recording Systems
• Email and Communication

Desirable criteria

• Use of SYSTMONE

Attitude, Aptitude and Personal

Essential criteria

• Able to build constructive relationships with warmth and empathy, using good communication skills
• Treats service users with respect and dignity at all times
• Enthusiastic, flexible and confident approach to working
• Able to prioritise own workload
• Willingness and ability to learn new skills and adapt to change
• Honesty, enthusiasm and a sense of loyalty
• Conducts self in a professional, courteous manner at all times and able to maintain professionalism in an often emotionally challenging environment