Clinical Nurse Specialist

Job overview

South West London and St George’s Trust is the main provider of integrated mental health and social care services in south west London.  Our child and adolescent mental health service provide out-patient and consultation services to children experiencing a range of mental health and developmental difficulties.

The Kingston & Richmond CAMHS SPA service processes and manages all referrals for children and adolescents in Richmond and Kingston boroughs where there are concerns about emotional heath/mental health difficulties.

The CAMHS SPA provides triage and Mental Health Assessments for children, adolescents and their families experiencing a range of Mental Health, Neurodevelopmental and emotional health difficulties.  The CAMHS SPA is integrated within Richmond and Kingston Children’s Services and works closely with Children’s social care, including working within the Multi Agency Support Hub (MASH) and our Tier 2 Emotional Health Service, provided through Achieving For Children. We also liaise closely with our GP, School and Health referrers, as well as local charitable and counselling support services to help signpost families to the most appropriate level of support.

Main duties of the job

This is an exciting opportunity to join an expanding and growing Kingston & Richmond CAMHS Single Point of Access (SPA) Service. We are looking for a committed CAMHS Clinical Nurse Specialist who is passionate about working with children and young people with complex presentations, and who is also interested in wider service development initiatives.

The Candidate should have the following:

• Experience of working with children and young people in a variety of settings
• Experience of work within a multi-disciplinary team and with multi-agency professionals
• The ability to relate and provide accessible services to a diverse community
• The ability to adapt to the fast-paced nature of SPA work, with good IT and computer recording skills to navigate between the various IT systems within CAMHS and the local authority.
• Knowledge and skills in risk assessment, management and safeguarding
• Be able to deliver a range of evidence-based interventions

This role is open to qualified Nurses with the following:

• Qualification as Registered Mental Health Nurse registered with the NMC
• Experience of working with children and young people in a variety of settings
• Experience of work within a multi-disciplinary team
• The ability to relate and provide accessible services to a diverse community
• The ability to efficiently work within a high-paced environment
• Knowledge and skills in risk management and safeguarding
• The ability to deliver a range of evidence-based interventions

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To provide specialist assessments of young children and their parents/carers referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and where appropriate, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews in line with CYP IAPT methodology
• To formulate and implement plans for evidence-based interventions, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, to improve the parent/child relationship
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychotherapeutic interventions employed individually and in synthesis, maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses, adjusting and refining formulations or understandings, drawing upon different explanatory models and employing methods of intervention that are based upon evidence of efficacy
• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual and the family
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plan
• To provide specialist mental health advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to the care of the young child and their parents/carer
• To contribute to and/or use evidence-based, integrated working tools and processes, to ensure young children and their parents/carers receive holistic and co-ordinated services in response to their mental health needs
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for young children and their parents/carers
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of young children and their parents/carers who are under their care
• To monitor progress during the course of interventions, ensuring that all interventions are fully assessed, planned, implemented and evaluated in conjunction with CYP IAPT minimum dataset standards
• To maintain accurate and accessible health care records according to Trust policy and Information Governance requirements
• To demonstrate high level communication skills, both written and verbal, within all agencies.