Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Job summary

This role has a starting salary of £40,761 per annum, based on 36 hours per week across 42 weeks a year pro-rata to £43,996.

Are you a qualified Speech and Language Therapist looking to develop your skills in working with school aged children?

We can offer great opportunities to join our skilled, supportive and solution-focused team where you will develop the speech, language and communication skills of children with a range of clinical diagnosis e.g. developmental language disorder, severe and complex learning difficulties, dysphagia, autism.

We are an expanding service with exciting career opportunities where posts can be mixed based on interests, including mainstream schools and colleges, specialist schools as well as developing a specialism in deafness or dysphagia.

We have posts across Surrey.

Rewards and Benefits

• 42-week contract, working across term-time and an additional, flexible 15 days for CPD, project work and supervision activities as well as 10 weeks holiday in non-term time
• Comprehensive clinical supervision including a buddy, 1:1 meetings with line manager, extensive training opportunities, access to clinical effectiveness groups, case study groups and enhanced probation support, termly whole-team study days
• Paid RCSLT membership and HCPC fees
• Employee Assistance Programme to support health and wellbeing
• Up to 5 days of carer's leave per year
• Paternity, adoption and dependants leave
• A generous local government salary related pension
• 2 paid volunteering days per year

Main duties of the job

• Clinical decision making in conjunction with school/college staff around the level of support needed to achieve the best possible outcome for the children and young people
• Working with assistants, setting targets for the children and young people they are supporting, and monitoring of the delivery and outcomes of their work
• Assessment, advice and intervention for children with a range of speech, language and communication needs within your caseload. For children and young people on your caseload who are considered to have complex needs and where a joint multidisciplinary approach is essential to achieving the best outcome for these children and young people, you will be supported by your clinical team leader
• Supporting junior members of the team, line managing others and taking on students

You will work in partnership with other colleagues to ensure a holistic and child centred approach to identifying and meeting children and young people's needs. Some examples are:

• Working in the community in close partnership with Advisory Teachers of the Deaf and the wider Physical and Sensory Support team to deliver a service to preschool deaf children and their families in their homes and in nursery settings
• Working with occupational therapists in our feeding pathways and MDT working in Specialist schools
• Joint assessments with educational psychologists
• Supporting the development and delivery of the annual service plan linked to the organisational aims and strategies

About us

We are a large team of both qualified therapists and non-qualified therapy assistants working in mainstream and specialist provisions through primary, secondary and colleges, with some opportunities for a preschool caseload.

We have excellent supervision and CPD models plus a rolling in-house training programme; we are committed to continuous learning and development. We are a forward thinking service and were involved with the RCSLT and Reading University around the dysphagia competences linked to student placements.

The Speech and Language Therapy Service is part of Surrey County Council's local offer to support the special educational needs and disabilities of children and young people within mainstream schools and specialist provision. This Service is part of the Inclusion & Additional Needs Team in Surrey's Children, Families and Lifelong Learning Directorate, and as such works collaboratively with other teams such as Educational Psychology, Specialist Teachers and SEN teams.

We aim to deliver the right support at the right time, through assessment and intervention; equipping families and professionals with the skills and resources to work together to support children with SLCN. We offer universal, targeted and specialist support for children, families, and the school workforce; working with children and young people with EHCPs and those at SEN support following Surrey's Graduated Response. We also have a specialist dysphagia service and specialist deaf service.