Clinical Associate in Psychology

The Lewisham CAMHS Children's Wellbeing Service (CWP) is an early intervention service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people with mild to moderate mental health difficulties.

Our service is underpinned by the principles of The Children and Young People's Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme (CYP IAPT) which is a service transformation programme delivered by Health Education England and partners that aims to improve existing children and young people's Mental Health Services working in the community.

Value and facilitate authentic participation of young people, parents, carers, and communities at all levels of the service

Provide evidence-based practice and are flexible and adaptive to changes in evidence

Are committed to raising awareness of mental health issues in children and young people, and are active in decreasing the stigma around mental ill-health

Demonstrate that they are accountable by adopting the rigorous monitoring of the clinical outcomes of the service, and

Actively work to improve access and engagement with service, Lewisham CWP Service is expanding and therefore looking for a passionate CAMHS practitioner to strengthen our early intervention offer for Lewisham children, young people and their families.

As a post holder, you will have some caseload and direct patient contact work. you will also be responsible for supporting and supervising Children's Wellbeing Practitioners, trainees and CAMHS practitioners as well as playing an important role in managing the delivery of the CWP Service :

Supporting trainees and Children Wellbeing Practitioners to deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health difficulties.

It includes supporting the service lead in supporting trainees and qualified CWPs' clinical work, ensuring the quality of care and safeguarding risks.

Post holder will play an important role in bridging with other internal and external colleagues from other services, working in a multidisciplinary team in a diverse community and assisting CWP Services to develop better services in response to the need of the community.

It includes overseeing group intervention, using data to monitor performance and spotting the need for change.

Post holder will use their specialist intervention skills to work with children and young people who exceed the threshold for guided self-help but meet the i-TRIVE Getting Help domain criteria

Working for our organisation

Lewisham CAMHS Service

The Directorate is committed to a multi-disciplinary, multi-agency, 4 tiered Service and has been at the forefront, nationally, of developments at Tiers 1 and 2 with Child Mental Health Specialists based in the community and working in GP practices, schools and Early Years Centres.

Lewisham CAMHs has teams based on three locations. Three teams based at Kaleidoscope Children's centre : Horizon, our generic service, the Neuro-developmental Team for children and young people with neuro-developmental problems, and the Paediatric Liaison Service that offers a service for children with physical health problems who are being treated by University Hospital Lewisham.

Three teams are based at the Lewisham Park site : Symbol, which works with Looked After Children and adopted children; LYPS (Lewisham Young Person Service ) who offer support to adolescents with severe mental health disorders and the Child Wellbeing Practitioners (CWPs) who offer a well-being service to children who present with low mood, mild anxiety or behavioural problems that do not reach the threshold for mainstream CAMHS.

The Adolescent Resource Team (ARTS) which is a service for young people who offend or who are at risk of offending are co-located with the Youth Offending Service.

In addition to the specialist work conducted within Lewisham, there is access to tier 4 inpatient service at Bethem and Guy's hospital.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical and Client Care

Manage day to day clinical risks and clinically advise team members on courses of action

To enhance accessibility to GP Youth Clinic and mental health services for CYP in Lewisham

To provide specialist psychosocial assessments, formulations, and interventions for CYP

To support and empower children, young people and families to make informed choices about the intervention

To support CYP experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties and their families in the self-management of presenting difficulties through the delivery of evidence-based interventions.

To work in partnership with families to provide culturally appropriate psychological interventions

To assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans

To act as care co-ordinator sharing responsibility for the oversight of cases within the CWP that require step up to Specialist CAMHS

• Provide support for CWP and others in using CYP IAPT compliant routine outcome measures


• Ensure clear objectives are identified, discussed, and reviewed with CWPs on a regular basis as part of their continuing professional development


• To develop and help deliver workshops, groups for children and young people or parents in


communities

To provide consultation and, where appropriate, training to other professionals in the GP clinic, third-party agents who contact children, young people and their families / carers referred with moderate, complex and severe mental health problems.

Contributing to team or service clinical functioning

To ensure that the staff and service take account of service user views in their day to day practice and are respectful of diversity.

To contribute to the effective functioning of the team and service through the introduction of innovative evidence-based clinical practice with the agreement of the service lead and service manager.

To contribute to the effective working of the team or service and to a psychologically informed framework for the service

To contribute to the team or service's delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities

To be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services

To advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients.

To liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients to develop and review care plans

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature, and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members

To work in partnership with other CAMHS teams, third parties and GPs to increase accessibility to services and enhance awareness of mental health and wellbeing

To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment

Policy and service development

• To implement policies and procedures in own area of work, and to propose improvements or beneficial changes


• To contribute to service development through undertaking and participating in appropriate projects related to the CWP Team and GP youth clinic


• To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities


Care or management of resources

• To take care of, and use carefully, the Trust's equipment and physical resources


• To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed


Management and supervision

To share day-to-day responsibility for the quality of delivery of clinical care with the Service Manager and other colleagues within the team

To provide clinical supervision for junior colleagues of the team including reviewing workloads, and revising interventions and care plans

To ensure that conditions of service and HR procedures are followed within the team, including monitoring staff activity, and managing capacity & performance

To contribute to the effective functioning of the team and service through chairing / leading relevant meetings, taking responsibilities within the clinical service as appropriate and negotiating with the service lead

To deputise for the service lead or other clinicians in case supervision, assessment, and review clinics during periods of annual leave or sickness and regularly deputise on extra agreed duties within your team / section

To comply with the trust and professional Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics' and Standards of Proficiency', and ensure professional development in line with these

To adhere to Professional Practice Guidelines and Trust policies and procedures

Teaching and Training

To ensure that the team has a learning environment that is conducive for CAMHS trainees, oversee placements and provide supervision or mentorship as required

To undertake teaching and training within the CWP

To develop and deliver training for members of the community

To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the CWP service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments and by implementing the knowledge gained in training to practice

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles

Record-keeping and Information Governance

To ensure that team members follow systems of safe practice and operational policies are adhered to

To ensure that all recording and reporting of client contact is accurate, up to date, within CAMHS, SLAM & professional requirement standards of record keeping and of good quality

To ensure that data and clinical information individual on clinical activity is collected and entered onto ePJS by all team members

To monitor and improve the standard of service delivery of the team through the implementation of clinical governance procedures such as audits and the development of protocols

Research and development

To establish and maintain evidence-based practice including the development of relevant evidence-based treatments within the service context

To implement new service protocols, audit and development and advise the wider service on these

To initiate, undertake, support and supervise regular complex service evaluations and audits

To initiate and carry out appropriate research where appropriate

To initiate and implement the development of outcome measurement and assessment and assist other staff in the implementation of the same

Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior clinician according to Professional and Trust guidelines

To ensure own Continuing Professional Development in line with professional and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and professional Standards for Continuing Professional Development

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies

To comply with the trust and professional Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics and Standards of Proficiency, and ensure professional development in line with these

To adhere to Professional Practice Guidelines and Trust policies and procedures

General

To travel as appropriate and across the Trust when required

To be aware of risks relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group and follow trust policies relating to its management

To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations and to support others involved in such situations

As the CWP team lead / CAMHS Specialist, you are responsible for leading and supervising a small team of Children Wellbeing Practitioner team and trainees as well as playing an important role in managing the delivery of the three functions of the CWP :

• Delivering evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues


• Supporting the senior mental health lead in supporting trainees and qualified CWPs' clinical work, ensuring the quality of care and safeguarding risks.


• Alliance with other internal and external colleagues from other services, working in a multidisciplinary team in a diverse community.


The successful applicant will be required to either successfully complete or have an opportunity to complete the funded PG CYP supervisor course at Kings College London (KCL).

The application for KCL supervision course needs separate application to KCL portal. Please see the attached files for application guidance.

Doctorate or MSc qualification in Clinical Psychology, Child Psychotherapy or Family Therapy / Systemic Psychotherapy with extensive experience in using CBT as a treatment modality.

First level nursing qualification / registration RMN or RNLD with formal Post Graduate Certificate / Diploma / MSc level qualification in CYP CBT

• All applicants Healthcare Professional (HCP) professional registration NMC, HPC / HCPC, ACP, BPS or UKCP.


• Min 2 years CAMHS experience -NHS, private or 3rd sector service., Doctorate or MSc level qualification associated with child and adolescent mental health / strong CPD portfolio


• Formal DBT training and / training in parenting intervention provision.


• Experience in design and delivery of Workshops, groups and interventions to patient target audience.


• Formal training in clinical supervision, Pg Cert IAPT Supervision (CWP) or equivalent experience.


Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience and ability to function as a specialist practitioner in CAMHS.


• Experience of working as a case manager in CAMHS sing evidence-based practice.


• Evidence of good practice in CAMHS assessments including assessing risk, behaviour, performance and family functioning.


• Evidence of providing culturally adapted CAMHS interventions.


• Evidence of experience of clinical governance, Outcome Measures and audits.


Desirable criteria

• Working with families in a diverse environment


• Experience of highly specialist CAMHS assessment and treatment


• Experience of undertaking qualitative and quantitative research methodology, A good working knowledge of the following :


• Typical Mental Health disorders in CYP's


• Ability to assess and manage risk utilising appropriate safeguards with minimal supervision.


• Advanced theoretical knowledge of psychosocial theories of mental health and the evidence bases for the relevant treatment.


• The information governance and new rules around GDPR as it relates to clinical confidentiality, information sharing and academia.


• Evidence of competency in clinical judgement


Desirable criteria

• Knowledge of the principles of clinical governance and CAMHS practice


• Evidence of organisational skills to deliver targets and meet deadlines


• Proven ability to work flexibly within a changing environment


• Good IT skills and able to manage to digital resources