Job summary
We are thrilled to announce the recruitment for a Clinical Lead for our SET CAMHS Locality Teams in MID Essex. This is a fantastic opportunity for a dynamic and passionate psychological professional to make a significant impact in the lives of young people and their families. As a Clinical Lead, you will play a pivotal role in ensuring the delivery of high-quality care within our locality teams. You will be responsible for developing and overseeing a needs-led, evidence-based clinical model. At SET CAMHS, we adopt the iTHRIVE framework, which guides care provision across our teams and services. In this role, you will oversee the quality of clinical care within your hub while maintaining direct involvement in delivering exceptional interventions to young people and their families.
Main duties of the job
As a Clinical Lead, you will: Lead and drive clinical improvements within the service, ensuring the delivery of the highest standards of care. Collaborate with operational managers and partner agencies to provide integrated care. Support and develop the workforce through supervision, consultation, and training. Contribute your expertise within multidisciplinary team (MDT) and leadership meetings. Hold a small caseload of young people with more complex needs. Skills and Experience Required Extensive knowledge and experience in delivering evidence-based psychological therapies within CAMHS, such as CBT, Family Therapy, DBT, and other psychotherapeutic approaches. A solid understanding of trauma-informed care and attachment-related presentations. A commitment to workforce development and clinical excellence.
About us
NELFT NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health and community services for over 4.9 million people living in the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, and across Essex. We work to ensure our patients, their friends and family, feel confident that their health needs are well met. With an excellent reputation for research and development, our skilled health professionals are at the cutting edge of evidence-based innovation, opening up the possibilities for better ways of working and delivery of care.
Details
- Date posted: 17 August 2026
- Pay scheme: Agenda for change
- Band: Band 8b
- Salary: £66,582 to £77,368 a year
- Contract: Permanent
- Working pattern: Full-time
- Reference number: SHX-3EL-001810
- Job locations: Stapleford House, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 0QX, United Kingdom
Job responsibilities
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
SET CAMHS has adopted the iTHRIVE Framework, which provides a set of principles for improving mental health and wellbeing support for children, young people and families, with SET CAMHS working in partnership with HCRG Care Group to deliver service to children and young people. The THRIVE Framework is needs-led which means that mental health needs are defined by the children, young people and their families, alongside professionals, through shared decision making. i-THRIVE | Implementing the THRIVE Framework (implementingthrive.org)
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification when completing your application
Starting with NELFT NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop-in sessions focusing on engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Goodmayes, Essex.
Probationary Period This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).
Working for Us 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 and Essex. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.
The Trust has award-winning equality and diversity initiatives, along with staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest significantly in your development because when you feel valued and supported, we can deliver the highest quality care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been recognised in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for five consecutive years, and hold a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Through our staff networks and training opportunities, we strive to foster a just and compassionate culture at NELFT.
Join a dynamic and evolving SET CAMHS service where innovation, collaboration, co-production and compassionate care are at the heart of everything we do. We are seeking an experienced Psychologist/Psychological Therapist with the appropriate professional training and registration, as outlined in the Job Description, to play a key clinical leadership role within our multidisciplinary team.
Working within the principles of the Thrive model, you will provide specialist assessment and therapeutic interventions for children and young people presenting with a range of complex mental health needs. Alongside the Operational Manager, you will contribute to the leadership and development of a supportive, reflective, and psychologically informed MDT culture that values creativity, flexibility, and evidence-based practice, while offering clinical oversight and containment to colleagues, and supporting high standards of care. As part of our Clinical Leadership Team, you will work collaboratively with fellow clinical leads and the Trust’s Psychological Professional Leads to shape and respond to the evolving needs of the service. We are committed to reflective practice, psychological safety, and staff wellbeing. Robust clinical supervision is embedded within the service, alongside opportunities to mentor and develop colleagues, contribute to service development, and access a wide range of CPD, training, and leadership opportunities.
This role offers exciting opportunities to strengthen partnership working and influence the future delivery of CAMHS interventions within a forward thinking and supportive service. If you are passionate about clinical leadership, psychologically informed practice, and making a meaningful difference to the lives of young people and families, we would love to hear from you.
Person specification
Other
Essential
- To be able to travel efficiently throughout the area
- To be aware of and demonstrate the Trust Values
- To be able to work within Professional Code of Conduct and Ethics
- To be able to work autonomously within the overall framework and procedures
- Able to form good working relationships with others in multi-disciplinary and interagency settings.
- Evidence of personal resilience and aptitude for dealing with challenging, potentially distressing and highly emotional clinical work.
Skills
Essential
- Basic Awareness of IT and IT skills
- Ability to communicate clearly and effectively highly complex and sensitive matters to patients, which give rise to psychological distress;
- Highly developed ability to integrate complex clinical information into a coherent formulation
- Specialist skill in the ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing complex and in writing complex, highly technical and /or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside of CAMHS.
- Ability to tolerate anxiety without recourse to premature action whilst appreciating the role of the supervisor
- Capacity to work alone, involving colleagues and manager as relevant
- Capacity to write clear records and observe policies, procedures and guidelines
- Ability to plan and organise own workload and time
- Ability to use outcome monitoring across all clinical work
Knowledge
Essential
- An awareness of NHS priorities
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of short term and long term in clinical interventions in CAMHS
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and adolescents and safeguarding policies and procedures
- Knowledge of NHS, Social Care and Education structures, national policies and frameworks, evidence based practice, including NICE Guidance.
- Knowledge of risk management and ability to monitor and assess risk and act accordingly to ensure safety
- Knowledge of research methodology and outcome research methodology and outcome research design and ability to critically interpret research findings.
Experience
Essential
- Extensive experience of working with difficult, disturbed or challenging children /young people requiring skilled and complex interventions
- Extensive experience of working with children and adolescents with co-morbid difficulties and special needs (i.e. combination of organic and emotional deficits, such as autistic spectrum disorders and trauma)
- Extensive experience of working therapeutically with parents/ carers/ families of children and young people with complex mental health problems
- Experience of using observation (e.g. in school contexts) to contribute to assessments of children
- Experience of carrying out generic assessment with other colleagues in the multi-disciplinary team
- Experience of specialist assessment carried out autonomously in order to determine the most appropriate treatment plan from a range of options for the child/young person
- Extensive experience of providing specialist individual interventions with a wide variety of children and young people, from 3 to 19 years old – presenting problems at the most severe end of the spectrum
- Experience of initiating, organising and planning inter-agency meetings aimed at setting in place a treatment package tailored to the individual needs of a child/young person
- Experience of providing professional teaching and training for other professionals working with the client group within the service and related agencies.
- Experience of providing clinical interventions in different cultural contexts
- Extensive experience of clinical supervision of post-graduate qualified psychological practitioners
Qualifications
Essential
- NVQ Level 2 or equivalent standard of literacy and numeracy
- Successful completion of a post-graduate training in psychological practice (e.g. Art Psychotherapist, Family Therapist, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist)
- To be eligible for registration as a full member of the appropriate professional body (e.g. HCPC, BACP, UKCP, AFT, ACP)
Demonstration of Trust Values
Essential
- We are kind
- We are respectful
- We work together with our communities
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This advert is for CAMHS Principle Clinical Lead with North East London NHS Foundation Trust in Stapleford House, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 0QX, United Kingdom, United Kingdom. It is listed as a Band 8 Manager and corporate role. The advertised salary is £66582.00 to £77368.00. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 31 Aug 2026.
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