Clinical Team Leader - Lavender Walk

Job overview

Welcome to CNWL Mental Health Inpatient Services for Children and Young People. Lavender Walk is an inpatient unit looking after children and young people aged 13 -18.   We are looking to recruit Clinical Team Leaders from all nursing backgrounds to broaden and develop the experience and skill mix available to young people at Lavender Walk.

We need innovative, dynamic people interested in developing their leadership skills in a supportive and highly skilled team. There will be opportunities to develop your therapeutic skills with our psychology, family therapy and occupational therapy leads.

Set in the heart of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, Lavender Walk is a Tier 4 Adolescent Unit which aims to provide a comprehensive assessment, diagnosis and treatment package, for young people with mental health conditions whose level of need can no longer be met safely in the community.  We work in a collaboratively with the patients, their family and carers, and local voluntary services.

We appreciate that not everyone has provided care for young people, but if you’re a Registered Paediatric, General, Mental Health or Learning Disabilities Nurse, with experience of working on a ward, we’d love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

We’re passionate about young people’s mental health outcomes, and strive to deliver first-class patient-centred, safe and effective care. Here at Lavender Walk you will be supporting young people to build a resilience, better coping strategies and healthy relationships.

Who are we?

The team consists of two consultant child and adolescent psychiatrists, junior doctors, nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists, family therapists, support workers, a ward manager and matron.  We also have a fantastic on-site school with an outstanding team of teachers and visiting tutors for music, art therapy and drama therapy.

What do we do?

We work closely with young people and their families to understand their problems, provide a comprehensive assessment, diagnosis, formulation and treatment plan to allow for them to return to their homes safely as quickly as possible.  We treat a wide variety of psychiatric illnesses such as psychosis, mania, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.  We don’t currently treat young people with primary eating disorders or those requiring naso-gastric tubes.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification

Typical tasks for this role?

• To support the ward manager in leading day-to-day running of the ward.
• To lead on nursing feedback in ward round and other professional meetings
• To take on the Primary Nurse role for individual young people.
• To assist in the development of junior staff and act as a role model to them.
• To ensure the provision of excellent, evidence-based nursing care for the children, young people (CYP) and their families at all times.
• To put children, young people, their families and carers at the centre of everything we do.
• To ensure the provision of a welcoming, caring, clean and safe environment for the CYP and their families.
• Recognising escalation in behaviour or shift in ward dynamics and proactively address this with staff or young people.
• Monitoring observations and ensuring safe practice and act appropriately and in line with unit procedure.
• Supervising junior staff and students to ensure the delivery of safe and effective care.