Systemic Family Therapist

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust; England; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 50,000; Full time

Job summary

A health trust in the UK is seeking a qualified family therapy practitioner to provide specialist treatment for children and adolescents facing emotional and mental health challenges. The role involves multi-disciplinary collaboration, comprehensive assessments, and therapy interventions. Candidates must hold qualifications in family therapy and have extensive experience with young people and complex cases. Supportive work environment and commitment to employee wellbeing are core values of the trust.

Benefits

Flexible working opportunities

Proactive health and wellbeing support

Supportive networks for staff

Qualifications

• Extensive experience of working with children/young people requiring complex interventions.
• Knowledge of legislation regarding safeguarding procedures and policies.
• Ability to communicate complex clinical information clearly.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist family therapy service for children and adolescents.
• Contribute to multi-disciplinary assessment and treatment.
• Maintain accurate records and ensure effective risk management.

Skills

Experience in therapeutic interventions

Communication skills

Ability to work autonomously

Clinical risk management

Education

Post-graduate training in child and adolescent family therapy

NVQ level 2 or equivalent standard of literacy and numeracy

Job description

Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for five consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

The post-holder will be a post-graduate qualified family therapy practitioner; fully registered with the appropriate professional or regulatory body ( HCPC, ACP, AFT), plus an additional post-graduate qualification in systemic family practice. The post-holder will provide specialist treatment and assessment within their professional sphere of expertise. They will be responsible for assessment, treatment, and systematic outcome measurement of CAMHS service users and the clinical supervision of junior clinicians within the team, where required.

They will ensure that a high quality, timely, accessible, and evidence-based service is available to all service users who require this input, throughout the borough. The post-holder will establish and maintain excellent working relationships with wider mental health and wellbeing services and ensure adherence to evidence-based treatments by all clinical staff across the team. The post-holder will be directly involved in delivering and supervising a range of therapeutic interventions, which may include systemic family work, parent work, group, school observations of children, short term input and specialist psychotherapeutic treatments.

They will be responsible for all specialist psychotherapeutic assessments and family therapy interventions within their professional sphere of expertise.

Main duties of the job

Key Responsibilities

• Provide an efficient, effective, comprehensive, and specialist family therapy service for children and adolescents with emotional, behavioural, and mental health issues, along with their carers / parents, and families.
• Contribute to the multi-disciplinary assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with emotional and mental health issues, including their carers / parents, and families.
• Undertake a range of highly specialist clinical work, urgent assessments, parenting support, and specialist cases.
• Contribute to audits and research.
• Actively participate in treatment and outcome monitoring, utilizing informed measures associated with CYP-IAPT.
• Work within clinical practice, utilizing supervision, and adhere to the overall framework of CAMHS and the Trust’s policies and procedures.
• Maintain knowledge of Trust protocols and procedures, adhering to them, especially in the administration of medicine and moving and handling.
• Exercise professional curiosity in daily roles and act upon findings appropriately.
• Provide both formal and informal supervision to junior staff when necessary.
• Act as an autonomous professional, fully registered with the appropriate professional or regulatory body.

Working for our organisation

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focussing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities

Provide an efficient, effective, comprehensive, and specialist family therapy service for children and adolescents with emotional, behavioural, and mental health issues, as well as their carers / parents and families.

Contribute to the multi-disciplinary assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with emotional and mental health issues, alongside their carers / parents and families.

Undertake a variety of highly specialist clinical work, urgent assessments, parenting support, and handle specialist cases.

Contribute to audits and research activities

Actively participate in treatment and outcome monitoring, including the use of informed measures associated with CYP-IAPT.

Work within clinical practice, utilizing supervision, and adhere to the overall framework of CAMHS and the Trust’s policies and procedures.

Organize and prioritize personal and team workload in the daily allocation of tasks.

Maintain knowledge of Trust protocols and procedures, adhering to them, especially in the administration of medicine and moving and handling.

Provide accurate records for the Trust's audit purposes

Ensure effective risk management at the team level through accident / incident reporting, risk assessment and control, and adding residual risks to the Trust register.

Exercise professional curiosity in daily roles and act upon findings appropriately.

Person specification

Demonstration of Trust Values

• Putting people first, prioritising quality
• Being progressive, innovative and continually improve, being professional and honest
• Promoting what is possible, independence, opportunity and choice

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• NVQ level 2 or equivalent standard of literacy and numeracy
• Successful completion of a post-graduate training in child and adolescent family therapy
• Be eligible for registration as a full member of the appropriate professional body ( HCPC, BABCP, ACP, AFT, NMC)
• Certificate of training, Registration number

Experience

Essential criteria

• Extensive experience of working with difficult, disturbed, or challenging children / young people requiring skilled and complex interventions.
• Experience of working with children and adolescents with co-morbid difficulties and special needs (combination of organic and emotional deficits, such as autistic spectrum disorders and trauma).
• Experience of working therapeutically with parents / carers / families of children and young people with complex mental health problems.
• Experience of using observation (in school contexts) to contribute to assessments of children.
• Experience of carrying out generic assessment with other colleagues in the multi-disciplinary team.
• Experience of specialist assessment carried out autonomously to determine the most appropriate treatment plan from a range of options for the child / young person.
• Experience of providing specialist individual interventions with a wide variety of children and young people, from 3 to 19 years old, presenting problems at the most severe end of the spectrum.
• Experience of initiating, organising and planning inter-agency meetings aimed at setting in place a treatment package tailored to the individual needs of a child / young person.
• Experience of providing clinical interventions in different cultural contexts.

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of short term and long term clinical interventions.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and adolescents and safeguarding procedures and policies.
• Knowledge of NHS, Social Care and Education structures, national policies and frameworks, evidence based practice including NICE guidelines.
• Knowledge of risk management and ability to monitor and assess risk and act accordingly to ensure safety.
• Knowledge of research methodology and outcome research methodology, and ability to critically interpret research findings.
• An awareness of NHS forward Plan, NSF, new ways of working and clinical governance priorities.

Skills

Essential criteria

• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively highly complex and sensitive matters to patients, which give rise to psychotherapeutic distress.
• Highly developed ability to integrate complex clinical information into a coherent formulation.
• Specialist skill in the ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside EWMHS.
• Ability to tolerate anxiety without recourse to premature action whilst appreciating the role of the supervisor.
• Capacity to work alone, involving colleagues and manager as relevant.
• Capacity to write clear records and observe policies, procedures and guidelines.
• Ability to plan and organise own workload and time.
• Ability to use outcome monitoring across all clinical work.

Other

Essential criteria

• To be able to work within the Professional Code of Conduct and Ethics.
• To be able to work autonomously within the overall framework of the Trust’s policies and procedures.
• Able to form good working relationships with others in multi-disciplinary and inter-agency settings.Evidence of personal resilience and aptitude for dealing with challenging, potentially distressing and highly emotional clinical work.

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT :

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term / chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our efforts to support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.