Specialist Speech

Band 6 - Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

We are keen to appoint a Speech and Language Therapist with a key interest in working with children with social communication and/or language difficulties. This post provides the opportunity to join a specialist team to work in the areas of neurodevelopmental disorders, selective mutism and developmental language disorder. The team provide a service to the Durham locality. There is some flexibility around base location and individuals preferences will be considered.

We recognise that this is a specialist area and as such, have devised a development framework to support therapists who feel that they can fulfil this role with some structured support during their first year in the role. If appointed on this basis, Agenda for Change Annex U will be applied.

As a key member of the team you will be passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people, and will work closely with a range of different partners including parents and carers. You will be a great communicator and enjoy working both independently and as part of a team in different settings within your locality area. You will carry a caseload of children and young people with complex developmental communication difficulties and provide leadership and support to less experienced members of the team. You will work in close collaboration with the Lead Clinicians in developing the service to this client group.

You will be part of a supportive and professional service with good admin support. There are excellent working relationships with colleagues within schools and local authorities, and the service has a strong commitment to CPD.

You will join an enthusiastic, friendly team of therapists and assistants supported by the speech and language therapy leadership team. Clinical supervision is well established for staff at all levels. The service promotes work-life balance and supports flexible working arrangements. When you start you will have a personal mentor to support you in your settling in period and will follow an induction programme to help familiarise you with people and places.

At North Tees & Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust our main priority is, and always will be, to provide safe and high quality care to our patients every day; the kind of care we would want for ourselves and our loved ones. We want our organisation to be the best place to work with the right staff, in the right roles, at the right time, to ensure we deliver exceptional patient care and experience.

We will support staff through providing an inclusive and supportive workplace with health and well-being initiatives, staff benefits and opportunities for personal and professional development. Staff recognition is very important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Star and Team of the month, colleague recognition - a note of thanks, Managers Awards, Shining Stars and Service Awards.

We recruit for values and “Together we are North Tees & Hartlepool”

1. Generate appropriate strategies to manage an individual specialist caseload including the assessment, diagnosis, treatment and discharge of a diverse range of clients with complex communication difficulties with support and supervision from lead clinician.
2. Develop and implement specialist care protocols and programmes of care and treatment, to meet the needs of clients in conjunction with their parents, carers, education staff and other members of the appropriate multi-disciplinary team (MDT) with support and supervision from the lead clinician.
3. Independently manage and negotiate the management of the needs of the children referred to the neurodevelopmental pathway with others in the diagnostic team e.g. onward referral to highly specialist clinicians or other specialist support agencies e.g. Consultants, Educational Psychologists.
4. To provide specialist advice to the Autism Diagnostic Teams to contribute to the diagnosis of children with social communication difficulties.
5. To ensure clients/families are involved in the planning and prioritisation of their care plans wherever possible.
6. Provide specialist education, training and supervision to speech and language therapy assistant practitioners and to speech and language therapists with less experience in the management of the client group, with appropriate supervision from the clinical lead.
7. Provide specialist advice and second opinions to less experienced colleagues.
8. Contribute to the planning, implementation and evaluation of teaching and training in the specialist area to parents, carers, volunteers and professionals involved in the care of the client group with support from the lead clinician and professionals.