Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Gloucestershire Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust; Leckhampton; On-site; GBP 47,000 - 55,000; Part time

Job summary

A community health organization in the UK is seeking a Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist for a part-time role offering 22.5 hours per week. The candidate will join a multi-disciplinary team to provide assessments and interventions for children with Autism and ADHD. Essential skills include effective communication and clinical expertise in autism assessments. The position offers a salary range of £47,810 to £54,710 per annum (pro rata) with opportunities for professional development and collaboration with educational institutions.

Qualifications

• Registered Speech and Language Therapist with HCPC.
• Experience working with children with Autism and ADHD.
• Demonstrated expertise in multi-disciplinary team settings.

Responsibilities

• Assess and diagnose children referred for speech therapy.
• Develop and advise on intervention strategies for clients.
• Provide consultation and supervision to education staff.

Skills

Communication skills

Assessment and diagnosis

Team collaboration

Intervention strategies

Education

Diploma/degree in Speech and Language Therapy

Registered with HCPC

Further training in ASC

Job description

CYPS CAAAS Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

The closing date is 25 January 2026

This role is offered on a part time basis for 22.5 hours per week.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a developing multi agency team comprising Paediatricians, Clinical Psychology, Speech & Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy. This team is hosted within the Children & Young People Service (CYPS) Directorate and education colleagues to enable multi agency care planning.

We are looking for a dynamic, efficient and motivated team member who has experience working as part of an MDT providing evidence-based autism and/or ADHD assessments and/or interventions in line with NICE guidance. Evidence of effective partnership working with education and health colleagues is essential. The successful candidate will have strong clinical skills and extensive experience in tailoring interventions and care plans to young people's needs. The successful candidate will have experience of diagnoses within their area of speciality that might include mental health and complex language profiles.

You would be part of a wider group of clinicians working with Children and Young People who meet regularly to offer CPD, peer support, share research ideas and clinical practice, and to drive forward quality improvement initiatives.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will

• Be able to confidently communicate a child's needs within multi-disciplinary arenas, and take an active role in both diagnostic decision making and needs planning.
• Be able to demonstrate good knowledge and skills around assessment and differential diagnosis, with experience of working with children, young people and families and those with Autism.
• Be able to demonstrate understanding of ADHD, or a willingness to learn more about this.
• Be confident in interpreting and analysing complex and/or sensitive information to a wide range of audiences, to drive continuous improvement and support service development.
• Be able to develop and maintain close links with a range of local services.
• Offer high quality clinical supervision and consultation to a range of professionals.
• Have expertise in delivering quality improvements.
• Have extensive experience of multi-disciplinary, multi-agency work.

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

To independently and within the context of an MDT assess, formulate, diagnose and advise on interventions for children referred to the designated caseload, and to work in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Gloucestershire Health and Care Services NHS Trust and within the principles of the Countys Early Years and Young Peoples Strategy.

To work autonomously, taking independent responsibility for the delivery of Speech & Language Therapy to a caseload of children referred to the designated Clinic.

To make appropriate clinical decisions following assessment, defining a differential diagnosis on the basis of evidence from formal and dynamic assessments and structuring clear care plans based on best practice.

To analyse complex information to enable decision making for case management and to design appropriate intervention from a range of options to meet the needs of children aged 0 -19 referred to the Autism and ADHD service.

To work co-operatively with a range of multi-agency staff, adapting practice where necessary to ensure that a timely and effective intervention is delivered to all children.

To provide advice, demonstration and training around specific strategies of intervention for the management of the child's communication difficulty in the following areas; Environmental intervention, Parent/child interaction, modification of linguistic environment, Group intervention and Alternative and augmentative intervention. This is particularly in respect to setting up favourable communicative environments that support the use of signing and symbols/ visual supports.

To assist with the training and support of Education practitioners and Teaching Assistants in education settings to enable them to undertake delegated intervention programmes in order to incorporate and integrate provision across the child's daily curriculum.

To contribute to multi-disciplinary clinical teams by discussing own and others input around clients needs to ensure a well-coordinated care plan, working closely with clients, carers, families and multi-disciplinary team members agreeing decision making relative to patient/client management.

To contribute to the development of Speech and Language Therapy colleagues, participate in student placements, supervise the work of SLT students, assistants and volunteers and explain the role of SLTs to visitors, volunteers etc.

To use negotiation skills to manage any potential areas of conflict in a proactive manner, especially in relation to satisfying the competing demands of an unpredictable and varied workload, working co-operatively and flexibly with all stakeholders.

To form productive relationships with carers /parents who may be under stress, in particular when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of their child's difficulties and implications of this. To communicate complex condition-related information from assessments in such a manner as to inform and positively motivate clients, carers, families and multi-disciplinary team members / other professionals.

To demonstrate appropriate skills and techniques to parents and to education staff to maximise the effectiveness of intervention within all settings.

To develop collaborative and co-operative working relationships with a range of colleagues and contribute to client/working groups where appropriate.

To develop and maintain working relationships with a wide range of other Professionals including Health Visitors, Community Paediatricians, Pre-school CYPD Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators, Advisory Teaching Staff, Educational Psychologists, Social Services colleagues, Head Teachers, teaching and support staff in mainstream schools.

Person Specification

QUALIFICATIONS

• Diploma/degree in Speech and Language Therapy
• Registered with HCPC
• Further training in ASC and neuro diversity or ability to undertake this
• Motivational Interviewing training.
• Post graduate course in sensory processing.

LENGTH AND / OR NATURE OF EXPERIENCE

• Postgraduate relevant clinical experience, with a proportion of that experience gained working with Children and Young people with ASC
• Extensive experience of working with children with ASC/LD
• In-depth knowledge of co-morbid mental health presentations in relation to ASC/LD children.
• Demonstrate extensive experience and clinical expertise regarding assessing and managing children and young people with significant mental health issues.
• Demonstrate knowledge and experience of adaptations required to ensure evidence based interventions are accessible for neuro-diverse children and young people.
• Demonstrate extensive experience and clinical expertise regarding assessing and managing children and young people with high clinical risk needs.
• Demonstrate experience of highly specialist professional consultancy and training to partner agencies
• Demonstrate experience and expertise regarding delivering ASC/neurodiversity related clinical supervision and consultation to a range of staff.

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

£47,810 to £54,710 a year (pro rata)