Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist

The purpose of the job is to improve the psychological health and wellbeing of children and young people. The post holder will be an experienced Psychotherapist who will undertake assessments and intervention with young people and their families in relation to a range of complex emotional, psychological, and behavioural problems. Namely psychoanalytically informed long and short-term interventions. Our aim is to improve children and young people's mental health,through the effective delivery of regularly, reviewable longer and short-term psychotherapy interventions, using the Anna Freud I Thrive framework to inform and provide safe, effective, cost efficient, timely and accessible services that are in accordance with national and local priorities and responsive to the needs and views of local children, young people and their families.

The post holder will provide a qualified, high-quality specialist psychoanalytic child psychotherapy service to individuals, carers, families, and groups, within and across CAMHS pathways, in line with best, evidence-based practice. This post holder will work directly with children and young people as well as providing training and consultation to parents, carers, and staff in our partner agencies. The pathway will work within the locally agreed demand and capacity model which is determined for each staff member through the job planning process. The post holder will also provide clinical oversight within the pathway.

This will include working with Children and Young people who are living in and responding to demanding circumstances and will be both complex and challenging. Other dimensions: To be responsible for the oversight and management of the CAMHS psychotherapy waiting list alongside the CAMHS pathway manager. To use analytical and judgment skills and be responsible for taking clinical management decisions in complex clinical issues. To provide consultation and advice about psychoanalytic and child psychotherapy issues to other members of the team/service and other professionals working with service users.

Take a lead with team safeguarding processes and supervision. To offer supervision to child & adolescent psychoanalytic psychotherapists, psychological therapists, trainee psychological therapists and psychological practitioners as appropriate. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of professional practice within the service/pathway. To contribute to and take responsibility for local service developments and implement policy changes as the psychotherapy lead.

To undertake audit and research relevant to the pathway. To manage an autonomous caseload for children and young people who are experiencing highly complex and persistent mental health difficulties including exposure to domestic violence and other trauma. To provide formal, highly specialist assessments of children and their parents/carers, to inform and assist in planning care pathways, both within the CAMHS service and with other agencies, considering relevant evidence base research, theory practice and highly complex processes which have shaped the child, their parents/carers and family. To provide individual short- and long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy for children either individually or with their parent/carers with the focus of the work being based in parent/child relationships.

To provide highly specialist, psychoanalytically based assessment and treatment to families who may be highly dysfunctional, with complex and persistent problems. To provide psychoanalytic group work, including providing training to other professionals in psychoanalytic group work practice. To participate in regular review and ongoing discussion of cases in treatment with other members of the multi-disciplinary team and where appropriate, co-ordinate and organise network meetings with professional members of other agencies. To be responsible for continually monitoring and evaluating risk to / from children and young people in own caseload and during supervision / consultation discussions.

This may be due to Child Protection concerns; emotionally led behavioural issues or other risk behaviour in their parents/carers To be responsible for the application of a range of theoretical and practical knowledge acquired over a significant period of time (e.g., developments in psychoanalysis, child development, attachment theory, neurobiology, systems theory, and group work. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility based on the Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics of the Association of Child Psychotherapists. To contribute directly and indirectly to a specialist psychoanalytically informed understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group, their parents / carers, and families. To be responsible for a highly specialist training, internally and externally on a particular area of clinical specialism.

To provide highly specialist psychoanalytic supervision to colleagues within CAMHS including psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses, social workers, art therapists, and trainee psychologists. To receive regular clinical and service-related supervision from your clinical supervisor, in accordance with good practice guidelines and the supervision requirement of Livewell Southwest To gain highly specialist experience and training relevant to a specific area of clinical specialism. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training, and supervision. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the Clinical Pathway Manager To take part in the LWSW annual appraisal and individual performance review programme.

To devise and develop research programmes relevant to the treatment methods of psychoanalytic psychotherapy as appropriate within CAMHS To promote and undertake audit as appropriate within CAMHS Audit Programme To utilise theory, literature, and research to support evidence-based practice in all areas of clinical practice. To participate and lead in the development of specialist services both within CAMHS and externally with other agencies To support and enhance the continual quality initiative towards improving services for service users. To be responsible for contributing to the development. Implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Service, in conjunction with the Clinical Pathway Manager.

To participate in activities of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services as appropriate and required. To maintain accurate and up to date records of clinical activity To ensure appropriate, safe, clinical environment for children in treatment including provision of appropriate play materials. To be part of a team of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists who provide services to the CAMHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service To maintain and develop links with other Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists in the region. To collaborate with colleagues in the multi-disciplinary child and adolescent mental health services in the planning and provision of services.

To liaise and collaborate with colleagues from various professions in health, education, and social services as well as the voluntary sector. To report to the Clinical Pathway Manager and other service managers as identified. To communicate sensitively with children and young people, with their families / carers, to ensure the highest quality of care.