Principal/Lead Systemic and Family Psychotherapist

Job Overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced and highly motivated family and systemic psychotherapist to join Harrow CAMHS. This senior leadership role combines advanced clinical practice with professional leadership, supervision, consultation, service development, teaching and quality improvement.

The post holder will work within the emotional Disorders Team, providing highly specialist systemic assessments and interventions to children, young people and families experiencing a wide range of emotional, behavioural and mental health difficulties. Working as a senior member of the multi-disciplinary team, the successful candidate will promote systemic thinking across the service and support the delivery of high-quality evidence based and family centred care.

The postholder will apply systemic approaches to inform assessments, intervention, safeguarding, risk management and multi-disciplinary care planning, working closely with the families, schools and partner agencies.

The role provides professional leadership for family therapy services, while using evidence and feedback to enhance outcomes in a culturally responsive and inclusive practice.

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Main duties of the job

The Principal Family & Systemic Psychotherapist will provide a highly specialist systemic and family therapy service for children and young people with mental health difficulties within Harrow CAMHS, primarily within the Emotional Disorders Team (EDT). The post-holder will undertake specialist family assessments, formulation, and evidence-based interventions for young people presenting with complex mental health needs, including anxiety, depression, OCD and PTSD, while contributing to the assessment and treatment of children and young people with ADHD, ASD, learning disabilities, eating disorders, and those from vulnerable groups.

Working as part of a multidisciplinary team, the post-holder will provide expert consultation, advice and support to colleagues and partner agencies, particularly in relation to complex family presentations and parenting capacity assessments. They will work autonomously within professional and organisational frameworks, maintaining responsibility for assessment, treatment planning, risk management, care coordination and discharge planning where appropriate.

The role includes delivering a range of systemic and family therapy interventions, leading family therapy clinics, contributing to service development, and promoting evidence-based practice through research, audit and quality improvement activity. The post-holder will also provide clinical leadership through supervision, appraisal and professional support to qualified and trainee family therapists and other members of the multidisciplinary team, including oversight of family therapy provision within Harrow CAMHS.

Working for our organisation

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is a large and innovative NHS organisation committed to improving health and wellbeing through partnership, high-quality care, and continuous service development.

Guided by its core values of Compassion, Respect, Empowerment and Partnership, CNWL places service users, families and carers at the heart of everything it does, while supporting staff to develop, grow and achieve their full potential. The Trust serves some of the UK's most diverse communities and is committed to creating an inclusive workplace where difference is valued and equality of opportunity is promoted.

As a Principal Systemic and Family Psychotherapist, you will join a highly skilled multidisciplinary workforce dedicated to delivering evidence-based, person-centred care and shaping the future of mental health services for children, young people and families.

This role offers the opportunity to contribute to clinical excellence, service innovation, teaching, supervision, and professional leadership within a Trust that is recognised for its commitment to staff development, collaborative working and delivering outstanding care across diverse communities.

Key Responsibilities

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

• Provide specialist systemic and family therapy assessments, formulations and interventions for children, young people and families.
• Offer expert consultation and advice to multidisciplinary colleagues and partner agencies.
• Contribute to diagnostic assessment, treatment planning and care coordination for complex cases.
• Deliver evidence-based family therapy interventions across a range of care settings.
• Undertake risk assessment and risk management, providing guidance to colleagues as required.
• Act as care coordinator where appropriate and participate in multi-agency planning and review processes.
• Lead and develop family therapy clinics as a core treatment modality within CAMHS.
• Communicate complex assessment findings and treatment plans sensitively and effectively to children, families and professionals.

Leadership and Management

• Provide clinical supervision, appraisal and performance management to family therapists and trainees.
• Manage and oversee workloads of less experienced staff.
• Maintain clinical oversight of family therapy provision and job plans across Harrow CAMHS.
• Contribute to recruitment, selection and workforce planning activities.

Education and Professional Development

• Participate in regular supervision, appraisal and continuing professional development.
• Deliver teaching, consultation and training to multidisciplinary staff, trainees and external agencies.
• Support the development of systemic practice across the service and contribute to family therapy training programmes.

Research, Audit and Service Development

• Lead and contribute to research, audit, service evaluation and quality improvement initiatives.
• Promote the use of evidence-based practice and systemic thinking across CAMHS.
• Contribute to policy development, service improvement and the establishment of best practice standards in family and systemic psychotherapy.

Administration

• Maintain accurate and timely clinical records and activity data.
• Prepare reports, presentations and professional documentation using Trust systems.
• Undertake administrative duties required to support effective clinical service delivery.

General Responsibilities

• Comply with Trust policies, professional standards and mandatory training requirements.
• Attend relevant multi-agency meetings, including safeguarding and care planning forums.
• Participate in CAMHS duty systems and work flexibly across sites as required to meet service needs.
• Promote equality, diversity, safeguarding, confidentiality, information governance, health and safety, and high standards of care at all times.

This senior role provides an opportunity to deliver expert clinical care, influence service development, and provide professional leadership in systemic and family psychotherapy within a specialist CAMHS setting.

Person specification

Education And Qualifications

Essential criteria

• MA/MSc or Doctorate in Family & Systemic Psychotherapy
• UKCP registration as Family & Systemic Psychotherapist
• Post-qualification training in additional CAMHS related specialised areas
• Post-qualification training in teaching and supervision of child and adolescent family therapy

Desirable criteria

• Recent Safeguarding children training
• CYP IAPT training/Supervisor training
• Supervision TrainingQualification in core mental health or social welfare profession (e.g. social work, mental health nursing, psychology, occupational therapy) and significant post qualification experience

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of developing and delivering bespoke CAMHS training to non CAMHS professionals
• Experience of developing and delivering clinical training to colleagues
• Experience in supervising as Family Therapist
• Experience of managing and supervising others in a clinical and performance management context A/I
• Experience of developing bespoke training packages, group work A/I 7 including appraisal
• Experience of working within a multidisciplinary CAMHS team

Desirable criteria

• Experience of developing bespoke training packages, group work

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
• Use of Evidence based practice using NICE guidelines
• Use of outcome measures in assessments
• Understands the need for and able to competently assess risk
• Understands individual and service safeguarding responsibilities, policy and procedure
• Able to work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team, actively engaging in and supporting duty and emergency Rota, peer support, training and skills development

Specialist Competencies

Essential criteria

• Experience of undertaking and supervising specialist family therapy assessment
• Experience of supervising generic and emergency assessment
• Extensive experience, knowledge and skills in the use of and supervision of family therapy intervention and management of children, adolescents and their families

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, EFFT

Attitude, Aptitude and Personal Characteristics

Essential criteria

• Able to build constructive relationships with warmth and empathy, using good communication skills
• Willingness and ability to learn new skills and adapt to change
• Conducts self in a professional, courteous manner at all times and able to maintain professionalism in an often emotionally challenging environment
• Understands and able to implement and promote the Equal Opportunities Policy at a level appropriate to the job