Senior Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

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Joining #TeamNELFT means you'll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We're CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for five consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

The post-holder will be a qualified fully registered HCPC Clinical or Counselling Psychologist with a passion for working in this area. As part of the QNIC recommended structure for inpatient CYP units, we are recruiting for these psychology posts into our Kent & Medway Adolescent Hospital MDT. The post holder will work very closely with Children and Young People's Mental Health Services across inpatient and community in Kent NELFT, the Kent and Sussex provider collaborative and other stakeholders. The Kent NELFT DBT Service offers specialist DBT assessments and interventions to YP and their families who are referred. The postholder will take a lead in liaison with all CYPMHS services to ensure clear transitions for young people entering and leaving inpatient services; linking with the DBT Service and where appropriate supporting the transition to Adult Services. The post holder will be part of the delivery of a highly specialist therapeutic service to CYP in the unit. They will be part of the inpatient clinical team and take on a leadership role whilst being accountable to the Head of Service and Assistant Director for inpatient/home treatment and crisis services.

Main duties of the job

Please see the attached job description and person specification for more information about this role and working at North East London NHS Foundation Trust. We encourage you to refer to this when completing your application.

The postholder will join a thriving psychological professions team across comprehensive CAMHS (inpatient and community). We have strong links with our local psychology training institute and on-going NHSE training for workforce expansion and upskilling.

We welcome your application even if you do not meet all the criteria listed in the person specification. Please apply as soon as possible as some posts close early to limit the number of applications.

Certificates of Sponsorship

Although we are a registered sponsor organisation, we are unable to offer sponsorship for all job roles. Please check your eligibility under the UKVI points-based system. When calculating the basic salary for sponsorship, HCAS (High-Cost Area Supplement) is not included to ensure fairness and consistency within our Trust.

Use of AI

Please see attached document regarding acceptable use of AI during the recruitment process.

Working for our organisation

Our Values 2025 - 2030

Working with our colleagues, patients and carers we have co-produced three new values that we aim to embed within our culture here at NELFT.

They are:

We are kind.

We are respectful.

We work together with our communities.

These three values help us to strive to provide the best care by the best people.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide highly specialist psychological assessment of children and young people with complex emotional, mental health and social needs, including children with diagnoses of learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental difficulties. The post holder will utilise highly specialist clinical knowledge of particular relevance to this client group.

Assessments to be based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests (WISC & WAIS), behavioural assessments, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews. This may include assessment as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

Case formulation will lead to intervention plans involving evidence-based interventions (FBA, PBS, CBT etc.), taking account of the need to engage clients who may have additional communication and learning needs.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for clients, their families and care systems. To monitor and evaluate client progress during both uni- and multi-disciplinary care and to be responsible for adjustments and refinements to psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, considering current theoretical and therapeutic models and also highly complex factors concerning developmental difficulties, chronic illness, and historical processes that have affected the young person, family or care system.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients.

To provide specialist psychological advice and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to client's formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan. This would include the dissemination of psychology research and theory.

To act, where appropriate, as multi-agency coordinator for the planning and review of care plans for children involved with complex, multi-agency systems.

To undertake risk and management assessment of clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk.

To offer clinical supervision as required within the multi-disciplinary team.

To have an understanding of the 2014 Children and Families Act in regards to children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).

To be flexible and responsive to the changing needs and priorities of the multi- disciplinary team.

To work in line within the context of CYP IAPT and iThrive principles, using evidence based psychological models of treatment and routine outcome measures.

Responsible for holding own caseload and for providing assessment and therapeutic interventions to address the mental health needs of children, young people and their families. This is delivered through regular contact within therapeutic sessions.

Responsible for maintaining service standards within own practice, including clinical governance and clinical risk assessment, and within the neurodevelopmental Pathway.

Responsible for creating and maintaining client records and notes.

Provision of specialist advice, within boundaries of own role, skills and knowledge.

Contribute professional opinion to relevant legal decision-making processes (e.g. child protection arrangements, domestic violence and abuse cases)

The post holder will receive supervision according to individual need

Person specification

Doctorate in clinical/counselling Psychology or equivalent

Essential criteria

• Experience working with families in CAMHS undertaking assessments
• Experience working with complexities in CAMHS

Desirable criteria

• Experience working with families in a tier 4 inpateint setting

Essential

Essential criteria

• Must have an HCPC registeration

Desirable criteria

• Must have sound knowledge about safeguarding

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a 'Top 10 Family Friendly Employer' from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans. reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email recruitment@nelft.nhs.uk.

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

As part of our recruitment process, we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same.

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.

Application numbers

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, we encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to ensure consideration.

If you require any additional support during the application process please contact recruitment@nelft.nhs.uk. We are happy to make reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment journey.
Documents to download

• Job Description & Person Specification (PDF, 444.5KB)
• Candidate Recruitment Pack (PDF, 671.2KB)
• Acceptable Use of AI in Recruitment (PDF, 3.9MB)