Systemic Family Therapist

Job overview

Systemic Family Therapist - The Children and Young People’s Intensive Support Hub - Band 7 (Part time - 30 hours per week)

An exciting opportunity has arisen in our Children and Young People’s Intensive Support Hub (CYP ISH) for a Systemic Family Therapist to join the team on a part-time basis. The CYP ISH was developed in 2021 and was designed as a short-term, bolt-on service to core CAMHS to support young people (aged 12-18) and their families. The aims of the service are to prevent hospital admission and/or to reduce the length of inpatient stays and support transition back to the community. CYP ISH is an 8am-8pm service that runs 7 days/week, so some flexible working may be required.

The team employs an MDT approach to delivering a trauma-informed, therapeutic service and there has been recent investment and development in relation to family-based work, including Non-Violent Resistance (NVR). This is a fantastic opportunity for a Qualified Systemic Family Therapist who is passionate about improving the outcomes for young people and their families. Applicants who are currently undertaking qualifying level training may be considered for a preceptorship opportunity with substantial prior experience.

Main duties of the job

To provide a qualified systemic family therapy service to clients of the Children and young people’s intensive support Hub (CYP ISH) across all sectors of care. This post provides a systemic overview of the family approach to the treatment of complex mental health disorders.  The post-holder will be responsible delivering a variety of family and systemic interventions. These interventions are highly specialised, reflecting an expectation that the service will continue to develop innovative practices that are based on collaboration between clinicians, service users and carers, and commissioners of the service.  The post holder will be responsible for this process understanding and applying evidence-based approaches both in relation to family treatments and in the involvement of service users and carers.

The post-holder will be expected to discuss clients’ care to colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures.

The post holder will also be accountable for their own professional actions and will need to interpret broad occupational policies (i.e. commitment to a family approach to treatment, involving service users and carers at all levels of treatment and service development).

The CYP ISH team operate 7 days a week 8am until 8pm therefore the post holder may be expected to work some evenings and weekends.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Delivery of a full range of family treatments to all patients.  These treatments may include the following systemic psychotherapy interventions:

-     Conjoint family therapy (all family members present in the room at the same time, plus patient and other members of multi-disciplinary team).

-     Separated family therapy (i.e. parental counselling and individual systemic counselling running in parallel).

-     Multi-family group therapy

The post holder is expected to participate in assessments of patients referred for treatment and to consult to multi-disciplinary and multi-agency colleagues regarding the family treatment component of each patient’s care.  Assessment of family interactions and formulating how these are connected to diagnostic factors will be a key component of the post, influencing the direction of treatment and recommendations for appropriate family interventions.

To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner to clients, family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

To monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care, and to provide appropriate reports on this.

To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of systemic assessment and formulation and treatment outcome, in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.

To assist in the management of the team caseload.

To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory and primary care agencies as appropriate.