Clinical Psychologist with CAAAS

NHS; Cheltenham; On-site; GBP 53,000 - 61,000; Full time

Job summary

An exciting opportunity for a Clinical Psychologist to join a multi-agency team in Gloucestershire, offering leadership and expertise in assessments and treatment. Applicants should hold a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and possess extensive experience in delivering high-quality care to children and families. The role involves coordination of specialist ASD clinical provisions and collaboration with various professionals to improve outcomes for children.

Benefits

Access to salary sacrifice schemes

Employee discounts

Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training accredited by BPS.
• Registered with a regulated professional body: HCPC & BPS.
• Experience in CAMHS or ASC settings.

Responsibilities

• Provide high-quality assessment and formulation of children's needs.
• Work as part of the diagnostic pathway for ASD.
• Provide clinical supervision and consultation to colleagues.

Skills

Clinical Leadership

Communication

Compassion

Understanding of Neurodiversity

Education

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology

Masters level qualification or equivalent

Job description

Go back Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

Clinical Psychologist with CAAAS

The closing date is 17 July 2025

This is an exciting opportunity to join a developing multi agency team comprising Paediatricians, Clinical Psychology, Speech & Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy.

We are looking for a dynamic and motivated Clinical Psychologist who would be able to work closely with multi disciplinary colleagues to offer leadership and clinical expertise. It is important that the applicant has experience working as part of an MDT providing evidence-based neurodiverse assessments in line with NICE guidance, with consideration of differential diagnosis. Evidence of effective partnership working with education and health colleagues is essential.

We are seeking someone who will:

• Work well with colleagues, families and commissioners, adapting their communication style appropriately and showing leadership and compassion.
• Show a good understanding of neurodiversity and differential diagnosis
• have experience working in Children's services and strong clinical skills.
• demonstrate clear communication of the development of the team both within the service/ directorate and relevant external service.
• have a range of experience of working within services which deliver innovative and high-quality services to children and young people.
• hold a doctorate in Clinical Psychology

Main duties of the job

• Working as part of the SCAAS and Neuro Team offering high quality assessment and formulation of children's needs.
• Holding the 'child's voice' as central to all decision making and working towards the best outcomes for children and families.
• Work as part of the diagnostic pathway providing clinical expertise.
• Offer clinical supervision and consultation to a range of multi-agency colleagues
• Support staff training and development.
• Opportunities to develop your leadership, managerial and clinical skills through training, profession specific support and development supervision and personal coaching initiatives.
• We will offer you: The challenge of complex and varied work within an integrated multi agency team
• A variety of competitive employee benefits including access to a range of salary sacrifice schemes and discounts.
• Our service is proud of its strong multi-disciplinary ethos within its clinical delivery and has robust clinical supervision, workload management and Continuing Professional Development structures in place.

The qualification, training & experience requirements for the role are underlined in the Job Description/Person Specification.

About us

We have a skilled and dedicated workforce of over 5000 colleagues working in a diverse range of services over 55 sites and within people's homes. We strive to enable a welcoming workplace culture that builds and celebrates civility, inclusivity and diversity, while providing a sense of belonging and trust.

Annual staff surveys, regular Pulse surveys and other engagement opportunities provide our people with lots of opportunity to tell us about their experiences of working with us. In the latest staff survey, 61% of colleagues gave us their views. It was great to hear that:

• 72% of colleagues would recommend the Trust as a place to work, ranking us 1st for Provider Trusts in the South West region on this question.
• 76% would recommend the standard of care provided in our services if a friend or relative needed treatment, also ranking us 1st in the South West region.
• 81% said that care of patients and service users is the Trust's priority, compared with an average in comparable NHS Trusts in England of 64%.

This high-level overview shows we are in a healthy position, with higher scores than average for comparable organisations, alongside a great response rate, indicating good staff engagement. However, we also know we have plenty of room for improvement in many areas. To that end, we continue to prioritise and invest in our commitment to genuinely becoming a Great Place to Work with consistent top-quartile performance in the annual staff survey and Pulse surveys.

Job responsibilities

Provide and coordinate highly specialist Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) assessment, formulation and differential diagnosis clinical provision for children and young people up to their 18th birthday. The initial service development will focus on preschool and primary school aged children. Provision will be in accordance to the application of a range of profession specific models of clinical practice.

Undertake a clinical leadership role in providing and coordinating highly specialist Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) assessments, formulations and differential diagnosis clinical provision for children and young people up to their 18th birthday. The initial service development will focus on preschool and primary school aged children.

Undertake clinical responsibility for a caseload involving complex needs, adhering to risk management and care planning processes in line with Care Programme Approach (CPA) and liaising with Trust and multi-agency partners across Gloucestershire as required.

Undertake a clinical leadership role and other management related tasks regarding planning, delivering and evaluating service improvements/learning from continuous improvement cycles in conjunction with CAMHS management and commissioners and in line with the CYPS Service Plan.

Implement and evaluate routine outcome measures (i.e. ROMS) within daily clinical practice.

Contribute to early intervention and psycho-education work with families/carers.

Provide highly specialist clinical supervision and teaching to a range of qualified and unqualified staff on a routine basis (including placements for students/profession specific trainees) to facilitate the development and consolidation of ASD/neurodiversity core skills and competencies within the workforce.

Provide high quality and specialist written clinical/professional reports and other means of effective communication as part of routine clinical responsibilities. This includes communicating highly complex clinical information within multi-agency settings and involves making difficult ethical and clinical judgements.

Ensure high quality, accurate and contemporaneous clinical record keeping is maintained in line with current Trust policies.

Ensure regular attendance at service wide meetings (including CPD opportunities).

Work flexibly to provide ASD provision within a range of clinical and community settings dependent on client and service need. Situations may demand an unpredictable work pattern and difficult situations as well as the need to balance a range of complex and high risk clinical needs and presentations.

Ensure local lone working arrangements are considered and adhered to when delivering interventions within a community setting.

Contribute to service wide clinical rotas as requested.

Ensure sound knowledge and adherence of Trust policies and procedures as well CYPS relevant documents including the CAMHS Operational Policy, ASD Handbook (under development) and relevant Risk Registers. Have a good awareness of the current CYPS Service Plan, wider CYPS Standing Operating Procedures (SOPs).

Contribute to providing out of hours services if requested by CYPS Management.

Change work base as requested by the Service Director.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology, as accredited by the BPS
• Eligible for Chartered status & demonstrate current registration with a regulated professional body/ organisation: HCPC & BPS
• Evidence of formal post graduate learning within a relevant CAMHS or ASC setting
• Masters level qualification or equivalent (including evidence of working towards this level)

Length and/or Nature of Experience

• Demonstrate extensive, post qualification experience of providing highly specialist and profession-based as well as evidence-based interventions within a clinical/therapeutic setting
• Demonstrate extensive experience and clinical expertise and be able to take a lead role on the provision of a high quality specialist ASD assessment pathway including consultation, assessment and therapeutic intervention)
• Demonstrate extensive experience and highly specialist professional consultancy and clinical leadership regarding service delivery of ASD/neurodiversity related clinical practice. This will include experience of contributing to service development initiatives or providing a formal clinical leadership role within clinical practice
• Demonstrate extensive experience and highly specialist professional consultancy and training to partner agencies
• Be proficient in the manipulation of complex psychological test equipment for use in formal testing situations
• Experience of leading and developing outcome tools/clinical evaluation systems
• Substantial experience of delivering services in accordance to recognised therapeutic models

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust

£53,755 to £60,504 a yearPer annum (pro rata)