CAMHS Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist (N&S SCAAND)

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; City of Westminster; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading NHS Trust in the UK is seeking a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist to work with young people with Intellectual Disabilities. This role involves providing comprehensive psychological assessments and interventions within a multi-disciplinary team. Candidates should have a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and experience in neurodevelopmental conditions. The position offers excellent professional development opportunities and flexible working arrangements.

Benefits

Excellent team support

Professional development opportunities

Flexible working arrangements

Qualifications

• Registered with HCPC and BPS.
• Experience with Intellectual Disabilities.
• Strong knowledge of neurodevelopmental conditions.

Responsibilities

• Provide highly specialist psychology services to CAMHS.
• Conduct comprehensive MDT assessments.
• Deliver specialist psychological interventions.

Skills

Specialist psychological assessment

Autonomy in professional practice

Clinical supervision

Team collaboration

Education

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology or equivalent

Tools

Psychological assessment tools

Job description

Overview

SCAAND provides a number of streams of mental health care for autistic young people and young people with intellectual disability and other neurodevelopmental conditions. This post will primarily contribute to the care of young people with intellectual disability, including providing input to the Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) pathway. SCAAND has excellent links with KCL and Clinical Psychology training courses, and staff benefit from excellent team support and professional development opportunities. Clinical work in the team is diverse, collaborative, evidence-based and truly multi-disciplinary, and includes an interesting mix of direct and indirect intervention and consultation to clinicians in local teams. The role offers a range of service development, supervision, teaching, clinical leadership and research opportunities, and SCAAND clinicians have access to a range of CPD and training both within and outside of SLAM NHS Trust.

The postholder will work as a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist in SCAAND contributing to comprehensive MDT assessments, providing specialist psychological assessment, formulation and interventions for children, young people and parents/carers, and providing consultation, training and support to local CAMHs clinicians and multi-agency networks. One component of this post will involve assessment of cognitive abilities including those with severe and profound intellectual disability, and good knowledge of development and neurodevelopment is important. The role also includes providing supervision, line management and team support. Supporting the psychological aspects of case formulation and planning within the MDT is also a key component of the role, and highly valued within the team in both regular meetings and joint working. There are also opportunities for developing and delivering teaching and training internally, to local training programmes, including KCL DClinPsy, and to external services and other agencies. The post holder will work closely with other clinical psychologists in SCAAND and other N&S CAMHS teams. They will work with the pathway leads to support the clinical governance and service development work of the team, including audits, research, service evaluation and quality improvement projects. There will be opportunities to lead on aspects of service development, relevant to the post-holder\'s specialisms, within SCAAND.

Location and Logistics

SCAAND is based at the Michael Rutter Centre for Children and Young People, Denmark Hill in South London. The role will require travel to clients in the community (e.g., home visits, schools or community bases) as appropriate and across the Trust and nationally when required. (Due to move to the Pears Maudsley Children and Young People (PMCYP) at the Maudsley Hospital in late 2025/early 2026).

Flexible working: As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage. (This may include working early mornings, later evenings or Saturdays as part of the core working hours/working pattern for this post).

Responsibilities

• To provide a highly specialist psychology service to National Specialist CAMHS SCAAND, particularly focused on working with young people with Intellectual Disability, including specialist assessment, treatment, planning, implementation and monitoring of outcomes.
• Provide clinical/management supervision to more junior colleagues and consultation as appropriate.
• To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.
• To provide clinical supervision and consultation as appropriate, functioning as a lead specialist in Intellectual Disability, neurodevelopment and associated mental health needs in young people.
• To undertake service evaluation, audit and research.
• To work as an autonomous professional within BPS and HCPC guidelines and codes of conduct, and guided by principles and policies or procedures of the service, taking responsibility for interpreting policies within defined parameters.
• To agree outcomes/results with clinical/professional lead and to decide how they are best achieved.

Equality and Inclusion

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; and that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity.

Application Notes

Please note: all applications for this post will need to be made online; 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 and the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible. By submitting your application you agree to your information being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. If you have not 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. If 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 and SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion. Stonewall is the largest LGBT rights charity in Europe.

Helpful Resource: How to Use TRAC for Job Applications. If you're preparing to apply for a role, this guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to use TRAC effectively throughout the application process.

Opportunity Overview

National and Specialist CAMHS present an exciting opportunity to recruit a highly motivated and experienced specialist clinician to a full-time band 8a Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist post within the multi-disciplinary SCAAND team based at the Michael Rutter Centre. NHS AfC: Band 8a 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 provide high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for the care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already 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: 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.