Senior Speech and Language Support Practitioner

Are you looking for an opportunity to work with and support children and young people with communication difficulties? The Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy Service has an exciting opportunity for a full time Senior Support Practitioner role in the Luton locality - Liverpool Road Clinic.

The successful applicants will have experience of working with children and / or young people, have knowledge of SEND and be able to work as part of a team; be dynamic, motivated and creative, with excellent communication skills.

To work across a range of community clinics, pre-schools, mainstream schools, special schools and in the Child Development Centres, under the supervision of a Speech and Language Therapist as a member of the Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy team.

To carry out routine intervention with direct and indirect supervision.

To work alongside the Speech and Language Therapist(s) (SLT) and colleagues to run therapy groups, carry out advice reviews, model and implement therapy advice and programmes.

Understand the theoretical knowledge of phonology and language.

Allocating suitable work and tasks to B3 Support Practitioners, with an overview of this workload.

Mentor and support new Support Practitioners.

To provide clinical administrative support, including preparing resource materials.

To independently provide training to parents and education staff under supervision and guidance from a therapist.

Rated 'Outstanding' by the Care Quality Commission, we are proud to provide high quality innovative services across most of the east of England that enable people to receive care closer to home and live healthier lives.

There's one reason why our services are outstanding - and that's our amazing staff - who, for the seventh year running, rated us incredibly highly in the national staff survey.

Main

**Responsibilities**:
To devise (when appropriate), implement and carry out or model therapeutic interventions which have been set by the SLT with patients with a range of communication difficulties and complex needs.

To carry out specified observation (auditory and visual) and information gathering to contribute to the SLTs’ assessment.

To demonstrate input to other educators and parents / carers.

To design, prepare and organise therapy activities, resources, training materials and equipment for own or others’ therapy, within the programme agreed by the supervising SLT.

To plan a timetable of activities for therapy sessions.

To review and extend a programme, within their clinical skills and knowledge, following analysis of a patient’s response to the intervention and providing feedback to the SLT for further clinical decision making.

To use own initiative within sessions and to work independently and unsupervised when appropriate.

To recognise appropriate opportunities to independently extend advice and strategies for patients and recognise when to refer patients back to the SLT for this advice.

To recognise potential conflict when it occurs and seek advice and support from your supervisor or line manager to find a resolution.

To form productive working relationships with service users who may be under stress and / or have challenging communication difficulties and to motivate them to engage in work programmes.

To oversee, monitor and manage the caseload and activities allocated to the support practitioners and to distribute this equitably within a specific locality team or across the localities, working to the service priorities at that time.

To contribute to overall caseload management by updating waiting lists appropriately with and without support from the SLT as required.

To provide shadowing opportunities and training for other support practitioners and to participate in the induction of new support practitioners to the team.

To provide mentoring and supervision to Band 3 colleagues as required.

To complete case notes, collaborative working documents and other record keeping requirements following clinical sessions, liaison meetings and patient contacts.

To support the administrative work of the Speech and Language Therapy service and initiate appropriate administrative tasks when required.

For more details, please refer to the attached JD & PS