Specialist Mental Health Therapist

Job overview

The role will involve working in the well-established and highly regarded North East Hampshire New Leaf Service, working with children and young people who are in care and those who are adopted and/or under special guardianship, ensuring that an appropriate, timely and affective therapeutic service is delivered to these vulnerable groups. NEH New Leaf Service is integrated into the Surrey New Leaf Service, whilst still retaining close links with the NEH Community Team, therefore benefiting from the experience of the extensive multi-disciplinary team and supportive structures present within both services.  Whilst the majority of service delivery is expected to take place at the Aldershot Centre for Health, the successful candidate will be expected to spend one day per week at the Surrey New Leaf base in Epsom.

Main duties of the job

• We are looking for an experienced and highly skilled clinician to join our well-regarded and innovative NEH New Leaf Specialist Service, providing assessment and therapy to looked after children, adopted children and those with Special Guardianship Order.  The candidate will need to have significant post-qualifying experience in the field of child and adolescent mental health and an ability to demonstrate experience and understanding of the issues facing children in care, young people leaving care and children who are adopted and under Special Guardianship Orders and who have experienced trauma. An ability to demonstrate robust risk assessment and management skills with this vulnerable client group are essential to the post, as well as experience of working with children and young people and their families/carers in a therapeutic context.  Further details of the main duties and knowledge and experience required are in the attached Job Description.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To provide specialist assessments and mental health interventions working in partnership at all times with children, young people and their families and carers.
• To provide consultation, training and advice to professionals and external stakeholders working with children and young people in these vulnerable groups.
• To be able to overcome a variety of barriers to communication when working with children, young people and families/carers who may be very traumatised, anxious, vulnerable and have difficulty articulating their problems, requiring imaginative and sensitive approaches towards engagement.
• To promote early intervention and active engagement amongst the network, being an ambassador for mental well-being and providing expertise in emotional and mental health across the system in order to effect better outcomes for children and young people.
• To be responsible for managing and prioritising own workload of children and adolescents with emotional well-being issues and more complex emerging mental health issues often involving additional difficulties, such as self-harming, depression, trauma and attachment issues.
• To be responsible for recording clinical work and communicating, both orally and in writing, in a skilled and constructive manner highly complex or distressing information.
• To use age appropriate and sensitive language when sharing assessment and treatment plans with young people being mindful where the information may be unwelcome.
• To exercise autonomous professional judgement and responsibility for professional practice.
• To consider and assess all safeguarding concerns and to act on these in accordance with national and local safeguarding procedures.
• To be committed to non-discriminatory practice, recognise and respect the protected characteristics of children, young people and families/carers. To be aware and mindful of the needs of children and young people from a wide range of racial, religious, cultural, social backgrounds, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability and SEND.