Senior Creative Arts Psychotherapist

This post is an exciting opportunity for an experienced creative arts psychotherapist who wants to work with young people with a range of mental health presentations that require a short period of hospital treatment. This include young people with psychotic symptoms, complex trauma experiences and a range of high risk behaviors. The post holder can access all 30 hours split across 2 CAMHS units in Colchester (22.5 hours) and Rochford (7.5 hours). If the post holder only wants the Colchester or Rochford hours, this is also possible. A job share can be considered.

As a senior member of the CAMHS Psychological Services provision the post-holder will be responsible for:
- Ensuring the systematic provision of high quality specialist psychoanalytically informed arts psychotherapy service to patients in the identified locality.
- To be responsible for ensuring that effective, arts psychotherapy interventions are provided to meet the needs of clients with complex needs. Interventions should be designed to support expression, self-awareness and relational ability through the use of the arts modality.
- To work with the Clinical Governance Head for Arts Psychotherapy/ Psychotherapy Lead to ensure that the arts psychotherapies service is current, evidence based and in line with practice standards. You will support evaluation and monitoring of the service.
- Providing a highly specialist assessment, formulation and consultation service, autonomously assessing and treating patients with severe and complex needs with psychodynamic informed arts psychotherapy.
- Providing specialist group and/ or individual arts psychotherapy.
- Providing specialist supervision in psychotherapy and arts psychotherapy as appropriate to qualified and honorary staff, as well as trainees within the Psychological Services and clinically managing the work of those under the post holder’s supervision.
- Undertaking inpatient coordination of care for a limited number of patients at the St.Aubyn Centre, alongside other multi disciplinary colleagues.

The post holder will work alongside an inclusive, comprehensive, passionate and experienced multi disciplinary and psychological therapies team.

The service offers trauma informed care. Treatment is offered to young people via evidence based and NICE informed Care Pathways.

Ongoing professional development and training are highly valued within the team and by leaders in the organisation.

Main Clincial Responsiblites
- Provide highly specialist management and treatment of psychodynamic informed arts psychotherapy, both individual and/ or group psychotherapy treatment, for patients with severe and complex needs.
- Draw on other relevant models of therapeutic theory to support clinical interventions for clients with personality disorders or other complex presentations.
- Manage independently and autonomously a clinical caseload of individual treatment and/ or arts psychotherapy groups for patients with severe and complex needs requiring short period of mental health stabilization via a hospital admission.
- Provide highly specialist assessments for newly referred patients, making appropriate use,,interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources, e.g. referral information, background histories, liaison with other teams and agencies, CPA and Risk documentation and patient questionnaire. Make recommendations for therapy that are mindful of:
1. determining appropriateness of psychodynamic psychotherapy treatment
2. recommending appropriate mode of treatment (individual, group, couple, family, art )
3. recommending patient/therapist suitability (gender, level of experience)
4. recommendations for future management, input and treatment.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual paitents.
- Undertaking inpatient coordination of care for a limited number of patients at the St.Aubyn Centre, alongside other multi disciplinary colleagues.