CAMHS Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist (N&S SCAAND)

Job overview

National and Specialist CAMHS present an exciting opportunity to recruit a highly motivated and experienced specialist clinician to a full-time  band 8a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist post (On-site role) within the multi-disciplinary SCAAND team based at the Pears Maudsley Children and Young People (PMCYP). SCAAND provides a number of streams of mental health care for autistic young people and young people with other neurodevelopmental conditions including intellectual disability. The service sees young people of all ability, but this post will focus on young people without intellectual disability.   SCAAND has excellent links with KCL and Clinical Psychology training courses, and staff benefit from excellent team support and professional development opportunities. Clinical work in the team is diverse, collaborative, evidence-based and truly multi-disciplinary, and includes an interesting mix of direct and indirect intervention and consultation to clinicians in local teams. The role offers a range of service development, supervision, teaching, clinical leadership and research opportunities, and SCAAND clinicians have access to a range of CPD and training both within and outside of SLAM NHS Trust.

Main duties of the job

The postholder will work as a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist in SCAAND contributing to comprehensive MDT assessments, providing specialist psychological assessment, formulation and interventions for children, young people and parents/carers, and providing consultation, training and support to local CAMHS clinicians and multi-agency networks. Key components of this post will involve both assessment skills (cognitive assessment, social communication assessment) as well as adapted intervention skills; and good knowledge of development and neurodevelopment is important.  The role also includes providing supervision, line management and team support. Supporting the psychological aspects of case formulation and planning within the MDT is also a key component of the role, and highly valued within the team in both regular meetings and joint working. There are also opportunities for developing and delivering teaching and training internally, to local training programmes, including KCL DClinPsy, and to external services and other agencies.  The post holder will work closely with other clinical psychologists in SCAAND and other N&S CAMHS teams. They will work with the SCAAND leads to support the clinical governance and service development work of the team, including audits, research, service evaluation and quality improvement projects. There will be opportunities to lead on aspects of service development, relevant to the post-holder’s specialisms, within SCAAND.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To provide a highly specialist psychology service to National Specialist CAMHS SCAAND, particularly focused on working with autistic young people, including specialist assessment, treatment, planning, implementation and monitoring of outcomes. •    Provide clinical/management supervision to more junior colleagues and consultation as appropriate.  •    To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment. •    To provide clinical supervision and consultation as appropriate, functioning as a lead specialist in mental health in neurodevelopmental conditions in young people.   •    To undertake service evaluation, audit and research. •    To work as an autonomous professional within BPS and HCPC guidelines and codes of conduct, and guided by principles and policies or procedures of the service, taking responsibility for interpreting policies within defined parameters. •    To agree outcomes/results with clinical/professional lead and to decide how they are best achieved.