Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Family and Systemic Psychotherapist

The closing date is 17 August 2025

Job summary

We are excited to be recruiting a Band 7 Family Therapist to join our Eating Disorder Service within Children and Family Health Devon (CFHD). This role offers an excellent opportunity to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, providing specialist family therapy interventions to children, young people, and their families who are experiencing complex emotional and mental health challenges related to eating disorders.

This 0.8 WTE (30 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, empowering families to build resilience, improve communication, and manage challenges in ways that promote long-term well-being, particularly in relation to eating disorders.

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 provide supervision, training, and consultation to colleagues, helping to enhance family-focused practices across the service.

We offer:

A collaborative and supportive team with regular systemic supervision.
Ongoing training and professional development opportunities to grow your skills.

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

Main duties of the job

Conduct comprehensive family assessments, identifying strengths, risks, and needs, particularly in relation to eating disorders, to inform intervention planning.
Provide evidence-based family therapy interventions tailored to the needs of young people and their families, in line withNICE guidelinesfor eating disorders.
Manage a caseload of children and young people withmoderate to severe mental health difficultiesrelated to eating disorders, ensuring interventions are timely, effective, and person-centred.
Work as part of a multi-disciplinary team, liaising with psychologists, mental health practitioners, dietitians, and partner agencies to ensure a holistic approach to care.
Contribute to service development, participating in quality improvement initiatives and helping shape the future of family therapy within CFHD, with a particular focus on eating disorder support.
Maintain accurateclinical recordsand 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 dealing with the complex challenges of eating disorders.

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

01 August 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 7

Salary

£47,810 to £54,710 a year pro rata (30 hours per week)

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time, Flexible working

Reference number

C9369-25-0615-1

Job locations

Children & Family Health Devon

Bittern Road

Sowton Industrial Estate

Exeter

EX2 7FW

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.

Job description

Job responsibilities

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.