Senior Mental Health Practitioner or Clinical Psychologist

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of mental health assessment, intervention and management 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.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.

Essential

• Qualified in core profession such as Mental Health Nurse (RMN), Mental Health Practitioner, Clinical Psychologist, Occupational Therapy, Social Work or creative therapies e.g. Art Therapy or Recognised degree level broad based health & social care qualification which will require completion of The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) Knowledge Skills and Attributes
• Accredited therapeutic training

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of child and adolescent mental health.
• Post graduate (masters and above) level study

Essential

• Experience of specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions with children and young people with mental health problems and their families.
• Working collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team
• Working collaboratively with other agencies in a variety of venues.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of child mental health problems, across the whole age range, reflecting all levels of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems and verbal and physical abuse.
• Must be experienced in providing risk assessment of self harming behaviour
• Must be experienced in analysing presenting problems and able to demonstrate ability to work autonomously utilising a range of therapeutic perspectives and modalities, depending on the needs of the client.
• Must be experienced in and able to demonstrate ability to provide case management supervision for lower banded CAMHS Workers, students and other service group/team professionals as required.
• Must demonstrate ability to be self-reflective and to organise own supervision appropriately. Must be able to demonstrate ability to develop and evaluate consultation and training to other professionals and to staff groups.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of specialist mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions of in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working with children and young people in a range of clinical settings.

Essential

• Some knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Must demonstrate knowledge of the evidence base in their practice.
• Must demonstrate understanding of child development and psychosocial influences
• Must demonstrate a working understanding of systemic, psychodynamic and cognitive theories along with recognition of when each approach is appropriate.
• Must demonstrate knowledge of audit and evaluation methodology.
• Must demonstrate knowledge of research methodology.
• Must demonstrate an understanding of current government initiatives underpinning service developments. Must demonstrate strong organisational skills.
• Must be able to demonstrate the ability to manage aspects of service development in line with government initiatives

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc)
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised therapies/interventions
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of child and adolescent mental health.