Job overview
West London CAMHS (WL CAMHS) provides specialist mental health services for children and young people experiencing a wide range of emotional, behavioural, psychological, and neurodevelopmental difficulties. The service delivers comprehensive assessments, risk management, and evidence-based interventions tailored to individual and family needs. Care is delivered within a multidisciplinary team approach, working closely with colleagues across CAMHS, including clinicians, therapists, nurses, and psychologists, as well as partner agencies in health, education, and social care. Regular supervision, consultation, and joint working ensure safe, coordinated, and high-quality care. WL CAMHS works collaboratively with families, carers, and schools to provide person-centred support that promotes recovery, resilience, and improved wellbeing. The service also contributes to consultation, training, service development, and quality improvement, supporting the ongoing development of evidence-based practice and clinical standards.
Main duties of the job
The post holder will provide advanced mental health support and treatment for children and young people, undertaking comprehensive assessments, including risk assessments and the development of risk management plans. They will deliver specialist interventions for young people presenting with acute, complex, long-standing, and/or severe mental health difficulties. The post holder will work in partnership with children, young people, their families, carers, and significant others. They will also liaise with statutory and voluntary agencies to develop effective multi-agency networks that ensure coordinated, appropriate, and timely support for young people and their families.
The post holder will provide accessible, high-quality care that is sensitive to cultural, ethnic, religious, contextual, family, and developmental needs. They will promote mental health, wellbeing, resilience, and personal and family growth through collaborative goal-setting and person-centred practice.
The post holder will utilise appropriate evidence-based treatment approaches and resources to support positive outcomes for children and young people. They will also offer specialist advice and consultation to professionals across a range of agencies, including primary care, social care, and education, and provide support, clinical supervision, and teaching to staff and students.
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
Knowledge
Essential
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment and intervention with children, young people and their families.
- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or 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 non-professional groups.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to children/families, mental health and children’s social care.
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS/HCPC (dependent on grade).
Desirable
- Knowledge and skills in specialist psychological assessment and treatment of specific groups e.g. those in crisis, have a suspected or diagnosed eating disorder and/or neurodevelopmental difficulties, or specialist skills in working with children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties.
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of application of therapeutic models to children who have special educational needs.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of children, adolescents and their families across a range of care settings, (e.g. outpatient, community, primary care, in patient settings).
- Experience of working with children, adolescents and their families which will have involved maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
- Experience working as a specialist clinical psychologist in CAMHS.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
Desirable
- Further specialist experience in CAMHS, for example;
- Experience working with children, adolescents (and their families) with learning disability and/or neurodevelopmental conditions (eg. ASD, ADHD, etc) in a CAMH setting.
- Experience working with children, adolescents (and their families) who present in crisis and have provided therapeutic input to prevent inpatient admission.
- Experience of working with other agencies and providing consultation.
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of working with children/young people with special educational needs and challenging behaviour or mental health difficulties and their families.
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the British Psychological Society, or equivalent if trained overseas.
- Eligible to work as a Practitioner Psychologist as approved by the Health Care Professions Council.
- Training in supervision
Desirable
- Training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist with West London NHS Trust in Southall, London, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Psychologist role. The advertised salary is £63,665 - £70,887 per annum inclusive. The contract type is Fixed term: 12 months (Business Development). The application deadline is 22 Jun 2026.
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