Senior Camhs Dbt Therapist

This is part of an exciting expansion of CAMHS specialist services within NCL. The role is a 1-year fixed term opportunity (or possible secondment) with the possibility of further extension into a permanent role. The role will work as part of a newly established DBT Team.

The post holder will work very closely with CAMHS services across NCL, clinicians and managers across Tier 4 units, CAMHS and crisis teams, the NCEL collaborative and other stakeholders.

The remit of the DBT Service is to offer young people referred into the service a consistent evidence-based therapeutic approach, to reduce inpatient admissions and to support the quick transitions of those in an inpatient service back to the DBT Service. The NCL DBT Service will offer specialist DBT assessments and interventions to young people and their families who are referred by CAMHS services across NCL. The service will be expected to liaise with other CAMHS services to ensure clear transitions for young people entering or leaving the DBT Service and where appropriate supporting the transition to Adult Services. The post holder will be part of the deliver of a highly specialist clinical psychology service to young people and their families who require a DBT Service. The NCL DBT Service is a multi-disciplinary team and the post holder will be part of the clinical team and be accountable to the Associate Director for Mental Health and CAMHS.
- The team will offer an intensive and specialist DBT assessment and treatment programme.
- The programme will include individual sessions for young people, telephone coaching, a weekly skills group for young people, and a group for parents and carers.
- Young people eligible for the programme will have a history of self-harm and suicidal behaviour, and traits of emerging Borderline Personality Disorder.
- Where needed, the service will offer trauma-focused interventions for those who are able to complete the first stage of DBT
- The team will treat young people with other comorbidities including anxiety disorders, depression, and eating difficulties.
- The team will provide advice, consultation and training to other professionals.
- The team will have a catchment area that encompasses Camden, Islington, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey.
- It will work closely with other teams across NCL at Tier 3 including the borough based CAMHS teams and Community Eating Disorders.
- Team members will contribute to audit and service evaluation activity.

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.
1. To provide specialist mental health assessments to children who are referred to the Team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation, and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the child or young person’s care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of the mental health problems of children and young people who are based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of their problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy across the full range of care settings.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological and psycho-educational interventions for individual children, carers, families and groups, within and across teams including community settings employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options for children and their families in conjunction with other professional colleagues, considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family, group or system.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of children whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other prof