CAMHS CWP Specialist Practitioner

Maudsley Learning; London; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 61,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking organization dedicated to transforming mental health services for children and young people. This role offers a unique opportunity to work within a dynamic multidisciplinary team, providing essential support and supervision to practitioners while delivering evidence-based interventions. You will play a key role in enhancing service accessibility and quality, ensuring that children and families receive the care they need. With a commitment to professional development and innovative practices, this position is perfect for passionate individuals eager to make a positive impact in the community. Embrace the chance to contribute to meaningful change in mental health care!

Benefits

Flexible working

Compressed hours

Professional development opportunities

Supportive team environment

Qualifications

• Doctorate or MSc in Clinical Psychology with extensive CBT experience required.
• Min 2 years CAMHS experience in NHS or private sector is essential.

Responsibilities

• Manage clinical risks and provide evidence-based interventions for children.
• Support and supervise Children's Wellbeing Practitioners and trainees.

Skills

Clinical Psychology

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

Risk Assessment

Clinical Supervision

Evidence-based Practice

Group Intervention

Cultural Competence

Education

Doctorate or MSc in Clinical Psychology

First level nursing qualification/registration RMN or RNLD

Post Graduate Certificate/Diploma/MSc in CYP CBT

Tools

ePJS

Outcome Measures

Job description

Main area Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Grade Band 7 Contract Permanent Hours

• Full time
• Flexible working
• Compressed hours

37.5 hours per week Job ref 334-CLI-6842846

Site 78 Lewisham Park Town Lewisham, London Salary £54,320 - £60,981 per annum inclusive of HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 02/01/2025 23:59

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to providing high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for the care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission rates our services as ‘good’.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.

As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

CYP-IAPT and the CWP Programme

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 be flexible and adaptive to changes in evidence.

Commit to raising awareness of mental health issues in children and young people, and actively work to decrease the stigma around mental ill-health.

Demonstrate accountability by adopting the rigorous monitoring of the clinical outcomes of the service.

Actively work to improve access and engagement with services.

Main duties of the job

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

You 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 needs of the community. This includes overseeing group intervention, using data to monitor performance and spotting the need for change.

You will use your 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 Bethlem 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.
• Enhance accessibility to GP Youth Clinic and mental health services for CYP in Lewisham.
• Provide specialist psychosocial assessments, formulations, and interventions for CYP.
• Support and empower children, young people, and families to make informed choices about the intervention.
• 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.
• Work in partnership with families to provide culturally appropriate psychological interventions.
• Assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
• 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.

Develop and help deliver workshops, groups for children and young people or parents in communities.

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

• Ensure that the staff and service take account of service user views in their day-to-day practice and are respectful of diversity.

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.

Contribute to the effective working of the team or service and to a psychologically informed framework for the service.

Contribute to the team or service’s delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

Be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.

Advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients.

Liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients to develop and review care plans.

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

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

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

• Implement policies and procedures in own area of work, and propose improvements or beneficial changes.
• Contribute to service development through undertaking and participating in appropriate projects related to the CWP Team and GP youth clinic.
• 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

• Take care of, and use carefully, the Trust’s equipment and physical resources.
• Ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed.

Management and supervision

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

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

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

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.

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.

Comply with the trust and professional ‘Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics’ and ‘Standards of Proficiency’, and ensure professional development in line with these.

Adhere to Professional Practice Guidelines and Trust policies and procedures.

Teaching and Training

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

Undertake teaching and training within the CWP.

Develop and deliver training for members of the community.

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.

Disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.

Record-keeping and Information Governance

Ensure that team members follow systems of safe practice and operational policies are adhered 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.

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

• 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

Establish and maintain evidence-based practice including the development of relevant evidence-based treatments within the service context.

Implement new service protocols, audit and development and advise the wider service on these.

Initiate, undertake, support and supervise regular complex service evaluations and audits.

Initiate and carry out appropriate research where appropriate.

• 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

Receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior clinician according to Professional and Trust guidelines.

Ensure own Continuing Professional Development in line with professional and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and professional ‘Standards for Continuing Professional Development.

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

Comply with the trust and professional ‘Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics and Standards of Proficiency, and ensure professional development in line with these.

Adhere to Professional Practice Guidelines and Trust policies and procedures.

General

Travel as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

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

Respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations and to support others involved in such situations.

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

Person specification

Qualifications

• 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/or 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

• Experience and ability to function as a specialist practitioner in CAMHS.
• Experience of working as a case manager in CAMHS using 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.
• Evidence of experience in the provision of clinical supervision and appraisals.
• Working with families in a diverse environment.
• Experience of highly specialist CAMHS assessment and treatment.
• Experience of undertaking qualitative and quantitative research methodology.

Knowledge / Skills

• A good working knowledge of typical mental health disorders in CYP.
• Ability to assess and manage risk utilising appropriate safeguards with minimal supervision.
• The information governance and new rules around GDPR as it relates to clinical confidentiality, information sharing and academia.
• Evidence of competency in clinical judgement.
• Ability to work to short deadlines, take on new concepts and be innovative.
• 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 digital resources.

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:

• Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice.
• Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment.
• We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity.

Please note:

• All applications for this post will need to be made online.
• Read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria.
• The closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible.
• Once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs.
• Should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date, your application has not been successful.
• Priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees.
• Should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process.
• We are a smoke-free Trust.

SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion; Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.