Specialist Childrens Learning Disabilities Nurse

Job overview

We are seeking a compassionate, innovative, and enthusiastic Band 6 Specialist Children’s Learning Disability Nurse to join our ‘Outstanding’ community Children’s and Young People’s Specialist services. You would be joining a friendly and supportive highly specialist multidisciplinary team and would contribute to the development of nursing provision within our Learning Disability Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (Starfish).

The post is 37.5 hours per week and will working across Norfolk, including Kings Lynn, Great Yarmouth, and Norwich. Base is negotiable and flexible working is supported and includes agile/home working where relevant.

The Starfish Team offers assessment and intervention for young people of school age (4-18 years) with a diagnosed learning disability who are experiencing significant behavioural and/or mental health difficulties.

The Starfish team covers a large geographical area, so it is essential that you can drive and have access to a vehicle when pool cars are not available.

Main duties of the job

• To provide highly specialised support and advice to children and teenagers with significant learning disabilities, neurodevelopment disorders and their families.
• To provide clinical nursing services for children and young people under 18 years of age.
• To provide a range of clinical expertise and design appropriate interventions to meet the child’s changing developmental needs.
• To be committed to implementing Every Child Matters principle.
• To supervise and manage junior staff, mentor new colleagues and student nurses.
• To undertake assessment and clinical interventions for children and young people with learning disabilities and mental health problems.
• To work within a multi-disciplinary team and lead on specialist area of care pathways such as ASD, ADHD & LD. The responsibilities include assessment, planning and implementation of care pathways for children within a specialist area.
• Running nurse led clinics, writing guidelines and auditing clinic sessions and ensuring communication between Consultant, GP and others as necessary.

To participate in rolling programmes of parent education which can be delivered either into groups or individually, both in clinic settings and at home. The post holder will use a range of training approaches to meet individual needs and to overcome possible barriers to understanding.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Clinical
• Use highly developed effective communication skills based on valuing others, recognising own and other’s strengths and differences.
• Ability to utilise an enabling and therapeutic approach with children and young people together with their families and carers.
• Ability to assess and plan enabling and outcome focussed care interventions with children, young people and their families/carers, drawing on previous nursing experience within an evidence based and theoretically grounded framework, utilising Every Child Matters principles.
• Monitor and evaluate care against agreed outcome measures.

Effectively plan and manage group work activities with colleagues.

• Ensure that care offered to children/young people is safe and needs focussed, drawing on current evidence based best practice.
• Use effective and standardised assessment tools.
• Practice in enabling and facilitative manner that aims high by drawing on strengths whilst recognising and working with stakeholders to minimise and overcome or adapt to environmental constraints.
• Be sensitive to and validatory of, social and cultural difference whilst maintaining the primacy of safeguarding principles.
• Keep timely, concise and accurate records, maintaining confidentiality.
• Carry caseload as allocated by Integrated Team Leader, developing individualised nursing care plans.
• Lead or participate in individual or group work with children and young people, adapting resource packages to meet specific needs.
• Exercise clinical judgement, soundly grounded and evidence based, supported by effective case supervision.
• Engage in play with children and young people.
• Applying evidence-based nursing knowledge to specific situations.
• Adapting standardised methodology to meet individual need, carefully analysing situations that arise in light of previous experience and best practice.
• Exercising sound clinical judgement with children, young people and families/carers who may have extensive needs but who have access to limited resources.
• Person to person contact with children, young people and their family/carers on a regular basis.
• To participate in regular reviews of cases and attend case discussions, conferences and reviews as appropriate, including safeguarding core groups and the conference process. Professional
• Identify and request sufficient time to continue professional development.
• Actively engage in monthly peer support meetings.
• Keep up to date regarding current practice and policy developments.
• Participate in research as allocated by the Integrated Team Leader/Clinical Pathway Lead following NCH&C guidelines and policies. Organisational
• Collaborative working with inter-disciplinary and multi-agency partners.
• Manage diary effectively to maximise clinical/development/travelling time to cover large mixed rural and urban populations.
• Report workload pressures appropriately.
• Supervise and manage junior members of staff including PDR and capability processes.
• Be aware of and responsive to, issues of potential and actual risk that may arise in carrying out care, reporting promptly using recognised NCH&C systems.
• Participate in service development work as directed by Integrated Team Leader utilising own strengths and areas of professional interest/specialism.
• Input client data as required on current IT system.
• Maintain security and confidentiality of information acquired, stored and sent within local and national guidelines
• Regularly visit children and their carers at home and may frequently be lone workers. The post holder may use VDU equipment for at least an hour daily.