Highly specialist speech & language therapist - Early Years Team

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; Uxbridge; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 45,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare organization in Uxbridge is seeking a passionate speech and language therapist to support children with communication needs. You will lead projects, provide assessments, and ensure high standards of care while managing a caseload. Ideal candidates should be experienced professionals dedicated to making a difference in young lives. Offering supportive environment, professional development opportunities, and regular supervision.

Benefits

Weekly buddy meetings for onboarding

Regular supervision meetings

Opportunities for clinical and leadership development

Qualifications

• Experience with children aged 0-19 with communication needs.
• Ability to develop and implement speech and language therapy interventions.
• Strong understanding of safeguarding and legal frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist assessment and intervention for speech and language needs.
• Lead training packages for early years settings.
• Monitor and report on therapy effectiveness.

Skills

Clinical assessment

Communication skills

Leadership capabilities

Negotiation skills

Clinical supervision

Education

Qualified speech and language therapist

Registered with health professional council

Job description

We are looking for a passionate speech and language therapist to work in the Hillingdon Early Years team supporting children and young people who have a speech, language or communication need.

You will be part of a supportive band 7 team - and take a lead in developing projects and supervising more junior staff. Have a look on our Hillingdon Talks, Moves and Plays website to find out about our wider service.

Responsibilities

• Provide a highly specialist assessment and intervention service for children 0‑19 with Speech Language and or communication needs.
• Be part of the ADOS assessment team.
• Provide a highly specialist assessment and intervention service to children 0‑19 who have swallowing, eating and drinking difficulties.
• Support in the development of training packages to early years settings, staff / parents / other professionals, in order for them to identify concerns regarding the child /young persons needs and implement therapy advice effectively.
• Support the service to achieve Key Performance Indicators, maintaining Target Activity Levels and demonstrating impact re quality and outcomes.
• Lead on quality governance, audits and projects for the team/service.
• Be responsible for the performance management of identified team members.
• Support the team leader in the leading and development of the team.
• Be responsible with team leader support for service improvement initiatives.
• Develop and implement highly specialist Speech and Language Therapy intervention.
• Provide appropriate highly specialist intervention / assessment and evaluate outcomes.
• Demonstrate highly developed auditory and perceptual skills in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of children 0‑19.
• Facilitate relevant professionals/parents to carry out speech and language therapy programmes/strategies/advice.
• Monitor the effectiveness of speech and language therapy programmes/strategies/advice being delivered by other relevant professionals/parents and adjust as necessary.
• Make a differential diagnosis, including complex cases, on the basis of evidence from assessment.
• Develop clear packages of care based on best practice and differential diagnosis and to use highly specialist clinical knowledge to inform case management.
• Demonstrate clinical effectiveness by use of evidence based practice and outcome measures.
• Keep up to date with new techniques and developments for the promotion and maintenance of good practice in own highly specialist clinical area.
• Demonstrate the ability to reflect on practice with peers and supervisors and identify own strengths and development needs.
• Manage caseload independently and prioritise workload using highly specialist knowledge.
• Recognise potential breakdown and conflict when it occurs and seek to resolve using highly developed negotiation skills, seeking further support from team leader if necessary.
• Ensure that children / young people, their families and schools / nurseries are involved in the planning and implementation of their care.
• Maintain sensitivity to the emotional needs of children & their families, especially when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of the child's difficulties and its implications.
• Attend case conferences & core group meetings for children / young people on the caseload, where appropriate.
• Submit safeguarding reports to case conferences and reviews.
• Record all concerns and discussions/supervision regarding safeguarding issues in Systmone clinical notes.
• Attend safeguarding supervision for all children / young people with a Child Protection Plan at least every 12 weeks.
• Provide safeguarding supervision (when trained) for team members on a rotational basis.
• Work independently and access clinical supervision sessions on a regular basis & actively contribute to own appraisal on an annual basis.
• Collate evidence of professional development related to the RCSLT CPD log.
• Demonstrate highly developed negotiation skills across a range of issues and negotiate with others around case management in highly complex cases.
• Deal with complaints sensitively avoiding escalation where possible, and inform the team leader in a timely fashion.
• Communicate highly complex information from assessments and ongoing therapy to children / young people, families and other professionals.
• Write outcome focused reports, and programmes/target sheets reflecting highly specialist knowledge which meet the needs of the child / young person.
• Support the development of, and adhere to, service plans and policies giving constructive feedback as appropriate.
• Advise team leader on issues of service shortfall or pressure.
• Assume delegated leadership responsibilities and tasks as requested by TL.
• Work within infection control and health and safety guidelines.
• Report all incidents in a timely fashion and access learning following incident investigation outcomes & complaints. Attend training to complete incident investigations.
• Support other team members in the reporting of incidents in a timely fashion.
• Work within legal frameworks including: SEND reforms e.g Statutory EHCP assessments, London safeguarding procedures and policies.
• Attend, contribute to and present at Team and Departmental meetings.

Benefits

• A buddy who will meet with you every week at first to help you settle in and who you can ask lots of questions.
• Regular supervision meetings with the team leader every 6 weeks, alongside annual appraisal and informal support.
• Termly peer supervision meetings where you can discuss difficult cases, read articles together and share your experiences.
• Regular meetings with the other band 7 mainstream team SLTs to ensure that the workload is being shared and support given.
• A busy but manageable caseload.
• Opportunities to develop your clinical and leadership skills and knowledge through termly study afternoons, shadowing more experienced therapists / leaders, membership of a CEN, training courses - clinical and leadership, etc.