Camhs Clinician

Band 7 (0.4 WTE - Permanent and 0.2 WTE - 12 months fixed term)

This is an exciting opportunity for a Band 7 clinician with experience of working with Children Looked After to join an experienced CAMHS team that is co-located with Children's Social Care.

The work has a consultative focus - including offering group and individual consultation to Social Workers and YPA's; opportunities for developing and delivering trainings, such as to foster carers; holding a small clinical caseload, which will include 1:1 work with under 16's and work with foster carers. Our work is framed within a stepped model of care and links closely with Islington Children's Social Care's focuses on DDP and motivational practice

We are a dynamic, multidisciplinary team and offer opportunities for continued professional development.

Islington Community CAMHS offers workers spaces to reflect, and encourages continued professional development and bringing dilemmas around EDI issues, though CPD opportunities, monthly whole-service 'lunch-time learning' seminar/workshops, BAME discussion forums and BAME reflective spaces.

Please see the Job description and the Persons Specification for further details about the job role. If you are unable to access the PDF, the details of the job description can also be found in the 'detailed job description and main responsibilities' section.

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trust believes that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

POST SUMMARY

This post is 3 days (0.6) based in the multidisciplinary CAMHS team for Children Looked After (CLA) and care experienced. Services offered by the team are commissioned by Children’s Services and clinicians are located alongside social workers and other practitioners, in an integrated service that aims to improve the experiences and outcomes of children and young people. The post is located with the Under 16s CLA Social Work teams.

**Under 16s CLA Teams (0.6 WTE)**:
The post holder will join other CLA CAMHS clinicians attached to the Under 16s social work teams and offer a range of consultation (group and individual) and clinical work in line with the team’s stepped model of care. Islington’s Social Work model, Motivational Practice, is a relationship-based, purposeful approach with social workers practicing in a trauma informed way, incorporating Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP). Clinicians are positioned to support social workers, as the lead professionals engaged in existing relationships and work with looked after children and their carers.

A stepped model of care is used with clinical advice and consultation available to social workers through clinician’s contribution to group supervision, consultation to individual social workers, to the ‘parenting team’ and attendance at multi-agency care and placement planning meetings. Direct work is offered when the level of concern about a young person’s presentation or needs indicates a psychological assessment or intervention is required, alongside the work of the parenting team.

The post holds a small clinical caseload (20%), offering specialist assessment and evidence-based interventions to young people and/ or their carers. Clinical work will include specific trauma focused interventions.

There are also opportunities for developing and delivering trainings to social workers and foster carers, including co-facilitating an attachment-based parenting skills group for foster carers with social work colleagues.

MAIN DUTIES

Consultation and Clinical Work
1. To provide highly specialist mental health advice and consultation to social workers in the Looked After Service to support their practice and management of young people presenting with a range of presentations and needs.
2. To attend group supervision, sharing clinical and mental health knowledge and expertise to contribute to case discussion.
3. To facilitate joint consultations with social workers and supervising social workers, to enhance their trauma and DDP informed practice with children and care-givers.
4. To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills of social workers and to support embed the social work practice model.
5. To provide specialist mental health assessment of children and young people using individual, parent/carer inter