CAMHS Practitioner- Duty Clinician
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.
We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.
We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.
The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.
Our Values
We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.
As a Trust we are happy to talk flexible working.
Job overview
Lambeth CAMHS is looking to recruit an experienced and motivated CAMHS Practitioner for our developing Lighthouse Team. This is an exciting time to join the team, which is currently expanding its offer to children, young people and their families as they enter CAMHS.
Main duties of the job
You will be one of five Lighthouse Clinicians responsible for the CAMHS duty system, which involves: screening and managing all new referrals; offering telephone ‘triage’ follow-up to children and young people who have attended A&E; responding to telephone queries.
You will also be required to offer face-to-face and video appointments to children and young people, and manage a caseload as the service develops.
You will share responsibility for ensuring positive clinical outcomes for children, young people and their families are achieved, and that these are evidenced by performance indicators such as activity data, targets and quality measures. You will also share responsibility for ensuring that all team members participate in audit, evaluation and research.
Working for our organisation
The London Borough of Lambeth has a population of 317,800 (GLA 2020). Lambeth’s population is highly diverse, a characteristic visible in the breadth of ethnic and cultural traditions seen throughout the borough. It is estimated that 63% of the population describe their ethnicity as other than White British; 23% describe their ethnicity as Black (11% Black African, 7% Black Caribbean and 5% Other Black), 22% White Other and 6% as Asian.
The Annual population survey, estimates that a third of Lambeth’s residents are non-UK born. Of these non-UK born, 40% are of wider European origin, 20% are of African origin; and 20% of Central or South American origin. Nearly 150 languages are spoken as the first language in the homes of Lambeth school children.Portuguese, Spanish and Somali, are the most commonly spoken other languages in Lambeth.
Lambeth has a child and youth population aged 0-20 of almost 70,000. Over 50% of this number are 0 to 9 years old
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1 You will be one of five Lighthouse Clinicians responsible for the daily CAMHS duty system, which involves: screening, contacting and managing all new referrals within target time frames; offering telephone ‘triage’ follow-up to children and young people who have attended A&E; responding to telephone queries and supporting the team where necessary.This will form the bulk of the work.
2 In addition, you may be required to offer face-to-face, video appointments or group work to children, young people and their families, and manage a caseload as the service needs.
3 In the absence of the named care coordinator, you may be required to provide cover, including dealing with any urgent telephone queries in their absence. For example meetings, e.g., CPAs; discharge planning; Child Protection Conferences etc.
4 You will share responsibility for ensuring that CAMHS staff within the teams achieve positive clinical outcomes for children, young people and their families and that these are evidenced by performance indicators such as activity data, targets and quality measures.You will also share responsibility for ensuring that all team members participate in audit, evaluation and research.
5 You will work with other CAMHS practitioners in the service from all disciplines. You will be a member of a number of internal and external professional networks to ensure that care plans for individual children and services across agencies are coordinated efficiently and effectively.
Person specification
Experience
Essential criteria- assessed supervised clinical experience working with children and adolescents with mental health problems/needs or clear evidence of transferable skills.
- Working in collaboration with supervisor, service user, carers and MDT in assessing needs, planning and implementing care
- A good understanding and some experience of the following: Group, individual and family work, multi-disciplinary work, clinical governance and audit and the process of clinical supervision in CAMHS
- Experience in carrying out specialist child and adolescent mental health assessments and treatments
- Research informed and evidence based methods of assessment, treatment and case management
- Skill in using a specific therapy in practice
- A good working knowledge of the following: Experience in risk assessment/safety planning
- Understanding of safeguarding legislation in the UK
Qualifications
Essential criteria- First level nursing qualification/registration RMN or RSCN or HV with related CA of MHS experience or any as below:
- First level qualification in Occupational therapy, Clinical or Counselling Psychology, Social work, or equivalent with related CAMHS experience.
- Qualification as a Systemic Psychotherapist (Family Therapist) with relevant CAMHS experience.
- First level qualification in art, play, drama, music therapy or psychotherapy (leading to a registered qualification with one the above statutory bodies) with related experience in the psychological aspects of caring for children and adolescent with mental health problems/needs
- All applicants will require a professional training and relevant CAMHS experience in combination with professional registration with one of the following statutory bodies: the Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC) , Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP),The UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), Social Work England
- Assessed supervised clinical experience working with children and adolescents with mental health problems/needs or clear evidence of transferable skills
- Additional therapeutic training
- Training in clinical supervision
The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights. We aim to put this commitment into practice by:
- Embedding our commitment to tackling inequality, eliminating discrimination and harassment; promoting equality of opportunity and fostering good relations in our everyday practice
- Ensuring that all our services and all staff understand and support our commitment
- We believe that people who use our services, their carers and our staff, should be treated with compassion, respect and dignity
Please note:
- That all applications for this post will need to be made online
- That you read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria
- That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible
- That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs
- That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not successful
- That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
- That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
- That we are a smoke-free Trust
SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion , Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe’