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Job overview
We are looking for an experienced senior clinician (Consultant Clinical/Forensic/Counselling Psychologist/Child Psychotherapist) to lead, manage and plan the delivery of a highly specialist CAMHS service as part of the Lighthouse. This is a maternity cover post until 31st May 2027.
The Lighthouse is the first UK Barnahus (Child House), an evidence-based international model of best practice for supporting CYP following sexual abuse, with a growing number of Barnahus services opening in Europe and beyond each year, and a planned national rollout across England over the next 3 years.
The Lighthouse is a multi-professional, child-centred and trauma-informed service and a national leader in the field, providing holistic multi-disciplinary assessment, physical and emotional health support, safeguarding and criminal justice support under one roof in a child-friendly environment. This includes Achieving Best Evidence interviews led by Lighthouse CAMHS practitioners and access to remote trials from the Lighthouse; and the provision of evidence-based, therapeutic interventions.
The service is led by University College London Hospitals working with the NSPCC and Metropolitan Police Service. CYP who live in the five boroughs in North Central London: Camden, Islington, Enfield, Haringey and Barnet can be referred or can self-refer to the service.
Main duties of the job
The service is led and managed by the Lighthouse Strategic Lead, Operational Manager and the Clinical Lead. It includes a CAMHS team (including Clinical Psychologists, Psychiatrist, Child Psychotherapists, CAMHS practitioners, and Lived Experience Consultant); a Health team (Paediatricians, Clinical Nurse Specialist and Play Specialist); and a Case Management Team (consisting of Child and Family Practitioners who are ChISVA's or Social Workers). We work closely with police officers, judges and court staff; and ‘Letting the Future In’ practitioners (NSPCC). The Lighthouse team is keen to increase the diversity in the team and is actively seeking to develop strategies to attract and retain a diverse pool of talent that will reflect the diversity of the children and families we serve. The CAMHS service within the Lighthouse is integral to our multi-disciplinary assessments and provides a range of specialist, evidence-based therapeutic interventions to children and young people and their families, including direct individual, parent and group work; and indirect consultations and training to professionals.
We reserve the right to expire vacancies prior to the advertised closing date once a sufficient number of applications has been received and we regret that we are unable to provide notification if your application is unsuccessful.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
For the full Person Specification and more information regarding the main responsibilities of this role, please refer to the attached Job Description.
To lead, manage and plan the delivery of a highly specialist CAMHS service as part of the Lighthouse, a multi-disciplinary Child House supporting children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse and their families.
- To personally provide expert clinical input across the Lighthouse and to lead the CAMHS/psychological therapies care pathways. • To be responsible to the Lighthouse Clinical Lead for the monitoring and implementation of professional standards in the practice of psychological therapies and for the systematic and effective provision of professional supervision. • To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment. • To ensure the conduct of research, service evaluation and audits relevant to the service and the research agenda, including outcomes reporting. • To be responsible for the good clinical governance, quality and appropriateness of the work of CAMHS practitioners in the service. • To work in close collaboration with other Lighthouse leads (in Practice Development, Social Work, Advocacy, Paediatric Health and Police roles) to fulfil and further develop the multi-disciplinary offer to children and families, contributing to a culture of collaboration, integrated practice and continuous learning. • To work as an autonomous professional within registration body guidelines and codes of conduct, and guided by principles and policies or procedures, and interpret these and be responsible for their implementation within the service areas of responsibility. • To take a lead on staff support within their area, working closely with other Lighthouse leads and the Paediatric Division Psychological Services lead(s) to support colleagues and ensure all staff at the Lighthouse have access to evidence-based support with reflective practice and CPD. To participate, as a recipient, in staff support work when appropriate.
Come and be a part of the best NHS trust in England to work for, according to our staff*
* UCLH top trust to work at in England - In the most recent NHS staff survey UCLH had the highest percentage of staff who said they would recommend us as a place to work, out of all general acute or acute/community NHS trusts in England – for the third year in a row.
UCLH recognises the benefits of flexible working for staff – To find out more, visit: Flexible working.
To discover more about what makes UCLH a great place to work, visit: Why Choose UCLH?
Person specification
Experience
Essential
- Evidence of having worked as a clinical specialist under supervision in the clinical specialty of children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing
- Experience of undertaking leadership roles
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature in children and young people’s mental health, paediatric health or equivalent services
- Experience of supervising and managing qualified clinicians
- Post-qualification experience that supports working with and addressing issues of diversity within local communities
- Experience carrying out post-qualification research, and/or audit and service evaluation projects
- Experience proposing and implementing service development projects that impact beyond your own service area.
- Experience of participation in recruitment
- Experience of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working, including provision of professional consultation
- Experience providing teaching and training to psychological practitioners or other professional groups
- Experience working with, and addressing issues of discrimination, including experience of working within a multicultural framework and delivering culturally competent services.
- Experience supporting children who have experienced abuse and neglect, including children who have experienced sexual abuse.
Communication
Essential
- To communicate skilfully and sensitively complex and sensitive information with clients, carers and colleagues overcoming barriers to communication including sensory, and emotional difficulties, cultural differences and hostility to or rejection of information.
Skills and Abilities
Essential
- To deliver specialist therapy across cultural and other differences.
- To select and administer specialist assessments, interpreting and integrating complex data that require analysis, interpretation and comparison, drawn from several sources, on which expert opinion may differ.
- To deliver high quality clinical risk assessment and management plans for children and young people as required
- To plan and schedule assessment and interventions for individual clients and groups and carers (and for meetings such as CPA and case reviews where appropriate).
- To plan allocation of tasks to other clinicians, assistants/trainees as appropriates
- Well-developed IT skills
- Consultation skills to work with the multi-professional team or other professional groups and sensitively managing, a number of people’s needs simultaneously within the context of therapeutic work/consultation.
- To plan delivery of psychology and psychotherapy services to the client group and carers, involving partner agencies.
- Specialist practitioner skills in discipline
- Advanced skills in professional supervision; including skills for offering live supervision of multi-disciplinary colleagues.
- Advanced skills in working with a number of clients and systems together, managing the highly complex emotional relationships within and between the component parts of the systems in ways, which maximise the potential for therapeutic outcomes
- Skills in providing teaching and training to other professional groups
- Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team and wider partnership, contributing to effective team functioning and holding team roles
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate.
- Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic meetings
- Ability to maintain concentration and to remain in restricted positions for long periods during observations, assessments and psychological communication including sensory, and emotional difficulties, cultural differences and hostility to or rejection of information.
- Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations such as working with victims of abuse or trauma, or with people who engage in severe self-harming or aggressive behaviour
- Ability to manage verbal aggression and hostility directed at self and to support others affected by these in their work
- Ability to manage highly complex situations involving multiple difficulties, and competing/conflicting views about those difficulties; and to help create contexts that develop systemic engagement, and harness the strengths and abilities of those involved in order to work towards solutions
Knowledge and Qualifications
Essential
- Qualification as Clinical/Forensic/Counselling Psychologist or Child Psychotherapist. Registration with HCPC or APC
- Additional training beyond entry-level qualification in a specialised area of psychological practice relevant to children and families through formal post-qualification training (PG Diploma or equivalent), OR a combination of specialist short courses and/an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice–based learning in a relevant specialist area of clinical practice, assessed by a registered body and/or an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma or higher.
- Completed training course in clinical supervision and/or accredited to supervise qualified practitioners in relevant discipline.
- Registered with professional body as appropriate to discipline HCPC/APC
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the professional body
- Further specialist training in therapeutic approaches relevant to supporting children who have experienced sexual abuse and their families
- Further training and CPD in provision of clinical consultation
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of management and leadership.
- Advanced theoretical knowledge of psychological difficulties for children and young people and the evidence base for the relevant treatment, specifically evidence-based approaches
- Knowledge of policy and best practice frameworks for addressing child sexual abuse, and current national and international service developments to support children and families affected by CSA.
- Advanced knowledge of the theory of psychological practice/processes in relation to supporting children and young people who have experienced abuse/neglect and their therapeutic application.
- Knowledge of assessment and clinical psychometrics relevant to children and young people.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health issues, child and adult protection, mental capacity and equalities
- Knowledge of factors affecting acceptability and accessibility of mental health care.
- To deliver psychological/psychotherapeutic therapy across cultural and other differences.
- To select and administer specialist psychological assessments, interpreting and integrating complex data that require analysis, interpretation and comparison, drawn from several sources according to discipline
- Knowledge of a range of therapeutic ideas/approaches/models in assessment and treatment relevant to discipline
- Knowledge of racial and other diversity issues and factors affecting access to mental health care.
- Knowledge of quality improvement methodology and complex statistical analysis, in order to lead on/supervise delivery of quality activities across the service
Personal and People Development
Essential
- Experience of supervising assistants and trainees having completed the relevant training
- Skills in providing teaching and training to other professional groups.
- To plan allocation of tasks to other clinicians, assistants/trainees as appropriates
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for CAHMS Team Lead with University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in London, London, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Manager and corporate role. The advertised salary is £88,250 - £100,355 per annum inclusive of HCAS (Pro rata). The contract type is Fixed term: 11 months (FTC Ending on 31-05-2027 - Maternity Cover). The application deadline is 01 Jul 2026.
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