CAMHS Head of Social Work

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West London NHS Trust provides a full range of mental health, community and physical healthcare services for children, adults and older people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow.

We also provide some specialist services that are commissioned regionally, such as our medium secure services; and nationally, such as the Cassel Hospital for people with complex and severe personality disorder and our high secure services at Broadmoor Hospital.

Job overview

Thank you for your interest in this exciting opportunity at West London NHS Trust.

The candidate pack contains all you need to apply for the post.

We are looking for an experienced and committed CAMHS Social Worker to take on the role of CAMHS Head of Social Work to support our structure for a fixed term contract of 1 year, owing to the current post holder taking a career break.

The West London CAMHS Head of Social Work is responsible for leading Social Workers across the 3 West London boroughs (Hammersmith and Fulham, Ealing and Hounslow) in liaison with the relevant team leads and managers. A key component of this role is to work with the CAMHS Senior Management Team developing Social Work in CAMHS across the three boroughs covered by the Trust. The leadership and management responsibilities will require having a presence in all CAMHS locations.

We would be delighted to hear from experienced Social Workers with extensive clinical experience; leadership and management skills and want to work creatively in supporting and developing the discipline within CAMHS and across the Trust

Main duties of the job

Social Work in CAMHS.

The successful candidate will be responsible for the leadership, management, supervision and development of Social Work across CAMHS, including our Crisis, Community and Specialist services, and will be responsible for workforce planning and retention of social workers across CAMHS.

They will be responsible for ensuring that the highest standard of social work practice is embedded across the organisation, by providing skilled and experienced leadership and practice knowledge to the organisation and its partners.

The Head of Social Work for CAMHS will be responsible for advising the Senior Management Team on policy and strategic developments within social work, including legalisation affecting social work in CAMHS and advocate for the advancement of the Social Work discipline and the integration of Social Work into policy and strategy.

Further, they will lead on effective partnership working within and outside of the organisation, creating a culture that promotes meaningful participation of individuals, communities, families and carers and co-production of services and solutions. Often acting as the key point of contact for the Local Authorities, ensuring partnership arrangements are in place, the post holder will support the ongoing maintenance of strong working relationships.

The WTE can be flexible between 0.6 and 1.0 WTE with an appropriate job plan to be agreed with the successful candidate.

Working for our organisation

The development of Social Work as a professional discipline in CAMHS is still a relatively new concept in many services, however in West London CAMHS there is already a well-functioning discipline structure, with 22 Social Workers across our teams. This includes:
• 1x B8b Principal CAMH Social Worker
• 2x B8b Clinical Team Managers (both dual-registered as family therapists)
• 4x B8a Senior CAMH Social Workers
• 10x B7 Clinical CAMH Social Workers
• 1x B6-7 CAMH Social Worker (Training and Progression Post)
• 3x B6 RtT Infant Mental Health Practitioners
• 2x B5 ASYE Social Workers

Please see job description for more details about this post.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The Candidate Pack provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. Please view as attached

The person specification below is not the full person specification, but outlines the criteria against which your application form will be assessed.

The link below will also provide useful information.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services staff share their stories of working for the NHS. (youtube.com)

Person specification

Qualifications and Training

Essential criteria

• CAMHS Core Professional Training relevant to discipline: Social Work
• Professional registration with the appropriate Regulatory Body for the discipline Social Work England
• Registered Social Worker Master's Degree (or working towards) and/or extensive equivalent experience

Desirable criteria

• Post-/graduate or doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice within CAMHS
• Supervision Training
• Leadership/Management Training

Experience

Essential criteria

• Extensive experience of working as a qualified member of the discipline for a significant number of years within CAMHS services
• A breadth of experience in clinical leadership and management.
• Extensive experience of managing member of the discipline/others
• Experience of representing the discipline within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Extensive experience of the application of Discipline specific practice in different cultural contexts
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups in CAMHS services, and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings
• Experience of maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of working in an effective time-limited manner with children and adolescents, including the use of techniques and modalities relevant to the discipline.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision of the relevant discipline.
• Experience of Supervising member of the discipline across a range of service groups within CAMHS and related settings, with experience of liaison with other agencies (local authority and education) in relation to the development and commissioning of posts and the working up of service level agreements in relation to these posts
• Experience of the management of staff including appraisal, performance management and budget holding commensurate with a leadership role.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings, including primary care.
• Experience of managing members of other disciplines
• Experience of service development

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

• Skills in the use of complex methods of assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Knowledge and skills of the application of assessment and therapy within child and adolescent populations.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the relevant Regulatory Body.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychological therapy staff.

Desirable criteria

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised therapies and assessment methodologies relevant to discipline and CAMHS.
• Knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis.
• Knowledge of the development of the discipline in the national context.
• Experience of developing and including service user initiatives in service planning

Other

Essential criteria

• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.

As an employee of West London NHS Trust, you have a responsibility to maintain a sound understanding of, and a commitment to uphold the National Health Service values and principles set out in the NHS Constitution.

We reserve the right to close adverts prior to the closing date stated should we receive a high volume of applications.

By applying for this post you are agreeing to West London NHS Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are offered a job, you will be required to undergo a pre-employment checks which can take between 4-8 weeks . After which your information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system (ESR ).

Please ensure you include email addresses for your referees which MUST be at supervisory or managerial capacity covering the last 3 years of employment to date to avoid delay in the recruitment process.

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).

West London NHS Trust is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• AD & JD (PDF, 992.2KB)