Family and Systemic Psychotherapist

Devon Partnership NHS Trust

This job is now closed

Job summary

We are excited to be recruiting a Band 7 Family Therapist to join our Mood, Emotions, and Relationships (MERs) Pathway within Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD). This North Devon-based role offers the opportunity to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, providing specialist family therapy interventions to children, young people, and their families experiencing complex emotional and mental health challenges.

This 0.88 WTE (33 hours per week) post is open to qualified Family Therapists, and we also welcome applications from those currently undertaking their qualifying training. Your role will focus on delivering systemic family therapy, supporting families to build resilience, improve relationships, and manage difficulties in a way that promotes long-term well-being.

As a key member of the team, you will contribute to specialist assessments, care planning, and interventions, ensuring high-quality, evidence-based support for young people. You will also supervise and support colleagues, providing training and consultation to enhance family-focused practice across the service.

We offer:

A collaborative, supportive team with regular systemic supervision.
Opportunities for ongoing training and professional development.
A chance to develop leadership skills by offering supervision and consultation.

If you are passionate about systemic family therapy and want to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children and young people, we would love to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

Conduct comprehensive family assessments, identifying strengths, risks, and needs to inform intervention planning.
Provide evidence-based family therapy interventions, tailored to the needs of young people and their families, in line with NICE guidelines.
Manage a caseload of children and young people with moderate to severe mental health difficulties, ensuring interventions are timely, effective, and person-centred.
Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, liaising with psychologists, mental health practitioners, social workers, and partner agencies to ensure a holistic approach to care.
Provide supervision and support to junior staff, trainees, and multi-disciplinary colleagues, helping to develop their skills in systemic practice.
Offer consultation and training to professionals within CFHD and external agencies to promote systemic thinking and interventions across services.
Contribute to service development, participating in quality improvement initiatives and shaping the future of family therapy within CFHD.
Maintain accurate clinical records and ensure all interventions align with professional and organisational standards.

This role is ideal for motivated and experienced systemic practitioners who thrive in a collaborative environment and are dedicated to supporting children, young people, and families through evidence-based family therapy.

About us

Successful applicants will be employed by Devon Partnership Trust (https://jobs.dpt.nhs.uk/locations/working-here )

Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD) comprises an Alliance of NHS organisations working together to improve health outcomes for children and young people in Devon.

CFHD provides integrated care and treatment for children and young people across physical and mental health. We are working closely with other organisations and providers to ensure we deliver locality and county-wide based integrated access to all of our services, based on the i-Thrive Framework, in response to consultation with our service users and communities.

CFHD works closely with our local universities of Plymouth, Exeter & the Peninsula Medical School where we support students in clinical training placements and in addition support our own staff to undertake post graduate training.

Our integrated care and treatment has been developed and refined in partnership with children, young people and their families/carers.

Our children and young people say

We would like the people who work for Children and Family Health Devon to be understanding, patient and respectful. They should be trustworthy and make us feel safe and comfortable. It is important that they use their skills and experience to listen carefully in a non-patronising and non-judgemental way. When staff are positive and friendly, they help to create an environment that is informal and without pressure.

Date posted

14 March 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 7

Salary

£46,148 to £52,809 a year

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9369-25-0198

Job locations

Integrated Childrens Services

Fishleigh Road

Roundswell Business Park

Barnstaple

Devon

EX31 3UD

Job description

Job responsibilities

Full Vacancy details can be found on the attached Job Description/Person Specification. Please refer to your suitability to the post in your supporting information from the role requirements or person specification.

Information regarding the Managing Mood, Emotions and Relationships Pathway:

In this pathway, you will join a strong multi-disciplinary team, providing assessments and therapy to children with severe, chronic and enduring mental health concerns such as depression, anxiety-based disorders and Trauma.

You would work with children, young people and families to understand their experiences and presenting concerns in order to provide an appropriate evidence-based intervention and work closely with other agencies to support the best outcomes.

The multi-disciplinary teams are diverse including; Clinical Psychology, Systemic Psychotherapists, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists, CBT Therapists, Psychiatrists, Speech and Language Therapists and Mental Health Practitioners from a range of backgrounds including Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Creative Therapies. This offers the opportunity for rich and nourishing shared clinical thinking and support.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Information regarding the Managing Mood, Emotions and Relationships Pathway:

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Masters level qualification in Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
Active registration with the UKCP as a Systemic and Family Therapist

Desirable

Post qualification specialist therapy / assessment training relevant to children and young people
Post qualification training or proven equivalent experience in supervision

Experience

Essential

Experience of working collaboratively with service users and their families/carers, including using goal-based care and routine outcome measures in practice.
Experience of working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team and across agencies
Experience of working systemically with a range of children and young people with complex needs, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and verbal abuse
Experience in providing effective clinical supervision, teaching, training and assessing in clinical practice.
Experience of safeguarding children and ensuring their safety in partnership with other agencies as appropriate.
Experience that evidences an ability to attend to diversity and work in a way that promotes anti-discriminatory practice
Experience of initiating, attending and contributing to multi-professional and inter-agency meetings.
Experience of managing and processing emotionally distressing information, seeking support as required

Desirable

Experience of undertaking specialist assessment and evidence-based systemic interventions, with the ability to work with complex needs and undertake risk assessments

Knowledge, skills and abilities

Essential

Ability to travel across Devon and work in a variety of locations, e.g. clinic base, schools, home visits
High level knowledge of clinical presentations in children/young people

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Masters level qualification in Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
Active registration with the UKCP as a Systemic and Family Therapist

Desirable

Post qualification specialist therapy / assessment training relevant to children and young people
Post qualification training or proven equivalent experience in supervision

Experience

Essential

Experience of working collaboratively with service users and their families/carers, including using goal-based care and routine outcome measures in practice.
Experience of working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team and across agencies
Experience of working systemically with a range of children and young people with complex needs, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and verbal abuse
Experience in providing effective clinical supervision, teaching, training and assessing in clinical practice.
Experience of safeguarding children and ensuring their safety in partnership with other agencies as appropriate.
Experience that evidences an ability to attend to diversity and work in a way that promotes anti-discriminatory practice
Experience of initiating, attending and contributing to multi-professional and inter-agency meetings.
Experience of managing and processing emotionally distressing information, seeking support as required

Desirable

Experience of undertaking specialist assessment and evidence-based systemic interventions, with the ability to work with complex needs and undertake risk assessments

Knowledge, skills and abilities

Essential

Ability to travel across Devon and work in a variety of locations, e.g. clinic base, schools, home visits
High level knowledge of clinical presentations in children/young people

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.