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Job overview
Post: Principal Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
Band: 8b (22.5 hours)
This is an exciting opportunity to join the highly specialist MDT in the Mildred Creak Unit within Psychological and Mental Health Services at Great Ormond Street Hospital (PAMHS). MCU is an eight-bed inpatient unit for under 13’s. It is part of the North Central London Network and provides treatment for a range of presentations, including functional disorders, eating disorders and patients requiring paediatric liaison.
We are looking for a senior clinician with extensive clinical experience who is interested in working in an inpatient environment. This is an opportunity for the post holder to draw on specialist knowledge and skills to understand and treat complex mental health conditions in childhood and early adolescence. It is intended that the post holder will play a key role alongside other members of the MDT in the delivery of complex assessment, formulation and highly specialist therapeutic interventions for children and their parents and families during admission on the unit.
Interested applicants please contact:
Dr Louise Allnutt, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, [email protected]
Main duties of the job
The Department of Psychological and Mental Health Services (PAMHS) provides mental health services for children and young adolescents with severe and complex mental health difficulties. There are various specialist services within PAMHS, one of which is the Mildred Creak Unit (MCU).
MCU is an eight bed Inpatient Unit for Under 13’s. It is part of the North Central London Network and provides Treatment for a range of presentations, including Functional Disorders, Eating Disorders and patients requiring paediatric liaison.
This role is designed to enhance the current provision on the unit in which a multi-disciplinary team draw on a wide range of approaches and modalities to meet the complex needs of the children, young people and parents. The CAMHS therapy team currently provide systemic family therapy, psychodynamic and psychoanalytic psychotherapy and a wide range of psychological interventions to both individuals and families. This role would suit a senior clinician with a broad vision of clinical intervention with often chronic as well as complex emotional conditions in children with a level of clinical skill and expertise in engaging children and families in therapeutic change. It is also expected that this clinician will need to draw on their clinical experience to support families and networks through complex assessments involved in understanding the safeguarding needs of the children involved in MCU treatment.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
The full job description provides an overview of the key tasks and responsibilities of the role, and the person specification outlines the qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge required. For both documents please view the attachment/s below.
Person specification
Skills/Abilities
Essential
- Evidence of skilled and productive multidisciplinary team working
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Highly specialised assessment and formulation skills relevant to professional discipline, including family assessment, developmental assessments, state of mind assessments.
- Highly specialist skills in communication both verbally and in writing, technical and clinically sensitive information to families and professionals.
- Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
- Ability to identify research needs of the service and facilitate quality improvement projects.
- Ability to draw on a variety of approaches in the engagement of complex and hard to reach patient groups.
Experience/Knowledge
Essential
- Substantial assessed experience of working as a qualified clinician at a highly specialist level
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, and presenting with the full range of clinical severity
- Experience of the application of discipline in different cultural contexts and of working in a multicultural framework
- Experience of preparing highly complex assessment reports and formulations.
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and young people, safeguarding, child protection and the mental health act.
Desirable
- Experience of teaching and training and presenting to multidisciplinary audiences at conferences and other training institutions.
GOSH Culture and Values
Essential
- Our Always values
Academic/Professional qualification/Training
Essential
- Doctoral level training in child and adolescent psychotherapy (registered with ACP)
- Post-graduate qualification in psychoanalytic observation
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Principal Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust in London, London, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Psychologist role. The advertised salary is £75,328 - £86,114 pro rata per annum inclusive. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 23 Jul 2026.
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