Job responsibilities

Provide specialist neurodevelopmental assessments for children and young people, including ASD and ADHD

Lead on complex assessments, formulation and diagnostic decision-making within the multidisciplinary team

Deliver evidence-based psychological interventions, including individual therapy, group programmes, and pre- and post-diagnostic support

Manage a clinical caseload, including a small therapy caseload within the generic CAMHS team

Provide consultation, advice and support to families, schools, GPs, and partner agencies to ensure joined-up care

Undertake and lead on risk assessments, ensuring safe practice and adherence to safeguarding procedures

Provide clinical leadership within the team, supporting pathway management and service delivery

Offer clinical supervision, mentoring and support to junior staff, including Assistant Psychologists and trainees

Contribute to MDT meetings, care planning, and service-wide decision-making

Maintain accurate and timely clinical records, reports, and outcome measures

Contribute to service development, audit, research, and quality improvement initiatives

Support training and development within the team and wider service

Work flexibly across clinic, community (e.g. schools or home visits), and remote settings

Participate in duty systems, including responding to urgent or crisis situations

Experience/ Knowledge

Essential

• Experience and Knowledge of working with children and young people with neurodevelopmental difficulties in mental health services, including the application of clinical risk assessment and safeguarding procedures in this area
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course with presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
• Experience & knowledge of undertaking neurodevelopmental assessments including autism and ADHD
• Knowledge of neurodevelopmental conditions and related mental health conditions.
• Practical experience administrating ADOS-2
• Good working knowledge of current and emerging areas of good practice in neurodevelopmental assessment and neurodevelopmental services
• Knowledge and skills in the use of complex methods of assessment and intervention, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Ability to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress, both directly with patients and indirectly in their network
• Capacity to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, and situations where there may be resistance, verbal aggression, or the threat of physical aggression.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies with children, young people and families.
• Experience of supervising junior staff
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Understanding of the need and rationale for using evidence -based interventions.
• Experience of both group and individual work
• Experience of work in multidisciplinary team/multi - agency contexts
• Experience of working with diverse communities and within a multi -cultural setting.
• Ability to meet agreed/specified service targets
• Ability to manage own caseload and time.
• Skills in using IT, including office applications, clinical record systems (e.g. RIO) and database/statistical applications.

Desirable

• Experience of providing evidence based psychological interventions to neurodiverse populations
• Experience in enabling service user participation.
• Practical experience administrating AD-IR or 3di
• Experience of cognitive assessments (WPPSI-IV, WISC-V, WAIS-IV)
• Experience of teaching and training.
• Implementing audit or research in a healthcare setting.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Compassionate
• Respectful
• Positive approach
• Being able to work together with other professionals, colleagues, clients and their families.
• A commitment to service users' participation across the levels of clinical practice, team/service, and the organisation
• High level of enthusiasm and motivation.
• Ability to use clinical supervision and personal development positively and effectively.
• Ability to be self -reflective whilst working with service users, in own personal and professional development, and in supervision

SKILLS/ ABILITIES

Essential

• Basic awareness of IT and IT skills
• Strong commitment to teamwork and development
• Ability to work effectively with a range of people
• Good written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work flexibly and to be responsive to the needs of the service.
• Ability to provide person-centred care

Qualifications/ Registrations

Essential

• Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology (or equivalent)
• Registration with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC)
• Trained in ADOS-2

Desirable

• Trained in ADI-R or 3di

Other Requirements

Essential

• To be aware and demonstrate the Trust Values
• To be able to travel efficiently throughout the area
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

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).