Senior DBT Therapist

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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 three 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

An opportunity has arisen for two senior clinicians to join the new NELFT Dialectical Behavioural Therapy for Adolescents (DBT-A) service. This is part of an exciting expansion of CAMHS specialist services within NCEL that align closely to national, regional and local health and care goals and objectives. The role is a 1-year fixed term opportunity (or possible secondment) with the aim of securing further extension into a permanent role with the successful implementation of the service. The post holders will work closely with the Principal DBT Therapist, leadership team, clinicians and managers across Tier 4 units, CAMHS and crisis teams, the NCEL Provider collaborative and other stakeholders.

Main duties of the job

The post holders will be responsible for assessing, managing, planning, and delivering care to their allocated patients, maintaining professional and legal accountability. They will support their peers, work effectively both independently and as part of a team, and supervise pre-registration students. A commitment to collaborative working is essential, with a focus on actively supporting and liaising with other health and social professionals and agencies.

The post holder will be responsible for ensuring adherence to the DBT model within the service. The NCEL DBT service offers specialised DBT assessments and interventions to young people and their families referred by CAMHS services. The service is expected to coordinate with CAMHS teams to ensure clear transitions for young people entering or leaving the DBT service and, when appropriate, to support transitions to Adult Services. The post holders will deliver a highly specialised clinical psychology service to these young people and their families who require DBT, manage their own caseload, and provide specialist supervision, consultation, and training to team members. As part of the multi-disciplinary team, the post holder will contribute to the team's clinical work and be accountable to the CAMHS Strategic Clinical Lead for London.

Working for our organisation

Joining the NELFT's newly established DBT-A team means your expertise and abilities will be highly appreciated. NELFT, recognized in 2021 as a 'Working Families Top Ten Employer' and a RIDI Award winner for 'Making a Difference - Public Sector,' invites you to become part of our team.

NELFT emphasizes a warm welcome and thorough induction for newcomers. New employees start on the first Monday of every month, receiving a full induction and opportunities to meet the executive team, senior managers, and participate in sessions about engagement, health and wellbeing, and essential processes.

We offer the following benefits:

- Structured education, training, and development programs

- Opportunities for leadership, coaching, and mentoring

- An internal lateral transfer scheme

- Flexible and agile working arrangements

- Family-friendly policies and procedures

- A range of staff benefits

- Support and resources for personal health, emotional wellbeing, and work-life balance

Probationary Period

This position includes a probationary period, from which internal applicants are exempt, unless they are currently undergoing a probationary period or are bank staff.

High Cost Area Supplement - Outer London

Additionally, this role includes a High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary, with a minimum of £4,313 and a maximum of £5,436 per annum, pro-rata for part-time staff.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. Supporting the DBT Lead's efforts in monitoring clinical outcomes, conducting audits, engaging in research, and driving quality improvement initiatives.
2. Ensure the systematic provision of a highly specialised clinical service to service users of the NCEL DBT Service, with a focus on delivering Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) across all sectors of care. This will be done in alignment with the principles of CYP-IAPT.
3. Provide highly specialised assessments and therapy, while also offering advice and consultation regarding the care of service users to non-psychologist colleagues, professionals from other agencies, and other non-professional caregivers.
4. The post-holder will offer specialist work as Clinical/Counselling Psychologist of the NCEL DBT-A Service delivered from a central base in Barking and Dagenham with potential outreach to Community CAMHS clinics in various localities as required.
5. Act as a fully integrated member of the DBT Service multidisciplinary team (MDT), actively participating in MDT meetings and contributing to the collaborative care of service users.
6. Work autonomously within professional guidelines.
7. To be responsible for organising and prioritising own workload in the day-to-day allocation of work.
8. To have organisational knowledge relating to Trust protocols and procedures and adhere to them.
9. To be responsible for providing accurate records of information required by the Trust for audit purposes.
10. To ensure effective risk management at team level by accident/incident reporting, assessing and controlling risk and ensuring residual risks are added to the Trust register.
11. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the service operational policies and high quality responsive and accessible services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
12. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• A qualification in one of the following core professions with appropriate associated professional registrations: o Nursing o Social work o Occupational therapy o Clinical psychology o Counselling psychology o Systemic Psychotherapist o Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
• Post qualification training in the clinical supervision of trainees.

Desirable criteria

• DBT Trained (Intensive) or extensive equivalent experience of working within the model in an outpatient setting
• Training as part of a CYP IAPT collaborative in a recognised evidenced based approach.
• Formal training in the supervision of a psychotherapeutic modality.

Experience

Essential criteria

• Consolidated experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care, and in-patient settings.
• Consolidated experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse.
• Further specialist clinical experience and training, through a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an agreed alternative
• Experience in the treatment of young people with complex trauma and disordered eating.
• Experience working within a multi-disciplinary therapy service

Desirable criteria

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision, including supervision of clinical psychology trainee(s)
• Delivery of DBT in a clinical setting
• Experience of service development or of a leadership role.
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team and/or CAMHS service and/or with wider professional networks and agencies
• Work with young people that have experienced trauma

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management.

Desirable criteria

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups within an outpatient setting such as CAMHS
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities, children with complex problems etc).

Skills

Essential criteria

• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively and well, 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 non-professional groups

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.

In the event of a high number of responses to any advert, NELFT reserves the right to close the vacancy early. If you do not hear from us within three weeks of the closing date then please assume you have not been successful on this occasion.

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

• Senior DBT Therapist JD and Spec (PDF, 442.8KB)
• NELFT Application - Hints and Tips (PDF, 38.4KB)