Family Therapist

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. To provide specialist systemic family therapy assessments for children/ adolescents who may be experiencing severe, highly complex eating disorders and persistent mental health problems.
2. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for own caseload and the formulation and implementation of treatment plans taking into account relevant evidence based research, theory, practice and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes which have shaped the child/adolescent, their parents/carers and family.
3. To provide specialist systemic therapeutic treatment for children, adolescents, their parents/carers and families referred to CAMHS, with severe, highly complex and persistent mental health problems.
4. To provide specialist systemic advice, guidance and consultation to professional colleagues within CAMHS and related external agencies who work with children/young people contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
5. To be responsible for working within the appropriate safeguarding and risk guidelines in relation to own cases. This includes reporting to and liaising with multi-disciplinary service and external agency staff (e.g. Social Services staff, CAMHS colleagues, adult mental health staff, primary health and hospital staff, education staff, Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, named child protection worker).
6. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on aspects of risk assessment and risk management
7. To coordinate, where appropriate, the intervention plans in respect of children and young people, taking responsibility for initiating planning and reviews with the young people, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.
8. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care, including providing specialist assessment reports as required, and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of multi-disciplinary care.
9. To participate in regular review and ongoing discussion of cases in treatment with other members of the multi-disciplinary team and to provide specialist expertise in systemic family therapy techniques. To utilise theory, evidence based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
10. To contribute as an independent clinician to a multidisciplinary team assessments and interventions including medical, social work, nursing team and other MDT with a focus on team and joint working.

Teaching, training, and supervision:

1. To receive regular clinical and service related supervision from a senior systemic family therapist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues in accordance with good practice guidelines and registration guidelines for UKCP registration.
2. To continue to gain specialist experience and training relevant to systemic family therapy and/or CAMHS and to maintain the highest professional standards of practice through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes as identified in an agreed personal development plan.
3. To maintain and develop skills in professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to contribute as appropriate to the provision of specialist teaching and training within and external to CAMHS including academic and clinical teaching programmes.
4. To support the management of the workload of trainee family therapists, psychologists and psychotherapists in consultation with clinical supervisors and the Director of Psychological Services.
5. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development:

1. To contribute to the development, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of operational policies, procedures and guidelines of the multidisciplinary CAMHS service and family therapy team.
2. To undertake audit and service evaluation with colleagues, to provide data as required by the service and to participate in audit and evaluation of systemic family therapy provision within the service.
3. To act in accordance with the policies of the Trust and the Association of Family Therapists Professional Practice and Ethical Guidelines. To comply with service standards and practice at all times and to comply with and promote safe working practice for self and others in accordance with Trust Health and Safety policies.
4. To participate in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising on systemic family therapy aspects of service provision.
5. To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the resources available for systemic family therapy work, such as materials and equipment used in the assessment and treatment of children and families.

Research and service evaluation:

1. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
2. To contribute to research, evaluation and audit projects with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.

General:

1. To contribute to the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes in consultation with the post-holders professional and service manager(s).
2. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in systemic family therapy across the service, by exercising systemic family therapy skills, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of systemic family therapy and related disciplines.
3. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the Association of Family Therapy and Trust policies and procedures.
4. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
5. It is a requirement of the post that the post-holder must be Registered with and maintain professional registration with the relevant section of the UKCP at all times. If, in future, the profession becomes regulated by statute, statutory registration by the appropriate body will be required, replacing this existing requirement.

Inclusive Recruitment & Selection

We are committed to being an inclusive employer and accurate data capture is an important part of that to ensure we are supportive and representative. Our aim is to ensure that all applicants can see themselves in the available categories on our application form, but we recognise that some of our data capture fields are not inclusive. We have flagged this with our system provider to ask for change.

We offer encouragement and active support to applicants with additional needs, including those from ethnic minorities, with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community. If you wish to adjust any aspect of the recruitment process or wish to find out more about our recruitment & selection processes, please get in touch with our Recruitment Manager: Catherine.Gilbert7@nhs.net

We are continually reviewing our recruitment & selection process to support the long-term aim of Sheffield Childrens being a champion of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion. If you have any ideas for improvement, please get in touch with Catherine Gilbert at Catherine.Gilbert7@nhs.net

Trust Values

The Trust is committed to providing great quality patient care and keep children, young people and families at the heart of what we do by following our CARE values:

• Compassion leading by kindness and showing empathy, understanding and respect
• Accountability striving to do the right thing and owning responsibility
• Respect value differences, tackling inequality and fostering a culture of inclusion
• Excellence delivering a high-quality standard of care

Person Specification

TRAINING & QUALIFICATIONS

Essential

• oPostgraduate qualification in relevant mental health/social welfare profession and demonstrable practice over a minimum of four years.
• oMasters/Doctoral level qualification in Family Systemic Psychotherapy or equivalent
• oRegistration as a systemic family therapist with the UKCP

Desirable

• oPost-qualification training and accreditation in a specialised area of psychological practice

EXPERIENCE

Essential

• oMinimum four years practice in relevant first profession (in Health and/or Social Care settings)
• oExperience of working and communicating with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course; in particular with children and young people, as well as work with family groups and adults, including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and verbal and physical abuse.
• oExperience of a wide variety of clinical presentations across the full range of severity and care settings
• oExperience of working in multi-disciplinary teams
• oExperience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care co-ordinator and also within the context of a multi-disciplinary care plan.

Desirable

• oExperience of representing family therapy within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• oExperience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
• oExperience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings, including inpatient care.
• oExperience of working in different cultural contexts.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Essential

• oSkills in the use of complex methods of assessment intervention and management with children and adolescents with complex and significant mental health problems frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• oWell developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to children of all ages, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• oSkills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• oRelevant master's level knowledge of research design and methodology
• oSome knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Desirable

• oWell-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. eating disorder, dual diagnoses, severely challenging behaviours etc.)

OTHER

Essential

• oAbility to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• oAbility to identify, and employ as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• oExperience of multi-agency working
• oAbility to self-manage within a busy and often emotional clinical environment

Desirable

• oExperience of working within a multicultural framework.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Centenary House

Heritage Park, 55 Albert Terrace

Sheffield

S6 3BR

Employer's website

https://www.sheffieldchildrens.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)