Job overview
The Head of Psychology Roles have been embedded in West London CAMHS, a vibrant and thriving service, for many years, and a role that is of strategic value within the psychological professions in the Trust. Owing to the appointment of one of the postholders into the Interim Ealing Borough Clinical Lead role, we are seeking a secondment for a new Interim Head of Psychology for Ealing CAMHS.
This post will lead Psychology within Ealing CAMHS and also some appropriate tasks across the service line, in liaison with the other borough’s Heads of Psychology. The successful candidate will be responsible for the leadership, management, supervision and development of Psychology within Ealing CAMHS and beyond.
Psychology is very well established profession in CAMHS services and has a large group of staff who deliver innovative and highly regarded clinical services in many different contexts. There is a well-functioning psychology leadership team in place with three other Heads of Psychology covering other Boroughs a number of 8b posts across CAMHS.
Main duties of the job
The job description sets out the Head of Discipline and clinical responsibilities for the Consultant Clinical Psychologist(s) in CAMHS.
In addition to providing a professional lead role for the profession, the post-holder will also undertake an active clinical role in Ealing CAMHS. A key component of this role is to work with the CAMHS senior management team developing Psychology in Ealing and across the three boroughs covered by the Trust. The leadership and management responsibilities may require at times having a presence in the other CAMHS locations.
We would be delighted to hear from experienced Principal Clinical Psychologists with extensive clinical experience; leadership and management skills and want to work creatively in supporting and developing Psychology within CAMHS and across the Trust.
The WTE available for backfill is 0.6 WTE.
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.
Person specification
Experience
Essential
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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
Qualifications & Training
Essential
- CAMHS Core Professional Training relevant to discipline: Clinical or Counselling Psychology; Systemic Family Psychotherapy, Child Psychotherapy, Nursing, Social Work and/or Occupational Therapy
- Professional registration with the appropriate Regulatory Body for the discipline (e.g. Health Professions Council (HPC), Association of Family Therapy, UKCP, Association of Child Psychotherapy, NMC etc)
Desirable
- Post-/graduate or doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice within CAMHS
- Supervision Training
- Leadership/Management Training
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for CAMHS Head of Psychology with West London NHS Trust in Southall, London, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Mental health professionals role. The advertised salary is £85,641 - £97,746 Per annum Inclusive, pro rata. The contract type is Fixed term: 12 months (Business Development). The application deadline is 30 Jul 2026.
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