Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Job Summary

Job overview: Brookside is a specialist Tier 4 CAMHS adolescent service with award winning services. The Tier 4 services include an acute in-patient service and a pioneering Young-Peoples Home Treatment Team. The young people admitted usually have complex mental health difficulties and present with high risk behaviours and/or acute episodes of depression, psychosis or other indicators of a complex mental health need. The post requires a high level of multi-disciplinary working, and an intensive, integrative therapeutic approach towards assessment, formulation and individual, family and group interventions. The post holder will join an established psychology team including a lead psychologist (Care pathway lead for psychology Tier 4 CAMHS), a team of clinical psychologists, assistants and trainees. The post-holder will work closely with the multi-disciplinary team which comprises of nurses, health care assistants, consultant psychiatrists, speciality doctors, occupational and family therapists and a social worker.

Main Duties of the Job

• Participating in the development and implementation of high standards of clinical care in CAMHS Tier 4 adolescent services ensuring the psychology service provided is needs led, compliant with national guidance and is experienced positively by service users.
• Offering support and consultation to the multidisciplinary ward team in their work and in the provision of psychologically informed formulation and interventions.
• Exercising clinical responsibility for undertaking psychological assessment, psychological treatment and discharge planning of clients in consultation with the multi-disciplinary team.
• To assist in the supervision, teaching and coordinating of assistant and trainee psychologists.
• Taking a senior role in the clinical development of the Tier 4 CAMHS services.
• Providing high quality, trauma-informed clinical care that is focussed on recovery and reintegration.

About [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] provides mental health and community services for over 4.9 million people living in the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, and across Essex. We work to ensure our patients, their friends and family, feel confident that their health needs are well met. With an excellent reputation for research and development, our skilled health professionals are at the cutting edge of evidence-based innovation.

Job Details

• Date posted: 04 May 2026
• Pay scheme: Agenda for change
• Band: Band 8a
• Salary: £57,528 to £64,750 a year
• Contract: Permanent
• Working pattern: Full-time
• Reference number: NDD-000349
• Job locations: Brookside - Child and adolescent inpatient unit, Goodmayes, Essex, IG3 8XQ

Job Responsibilities

Clinical Skills

• Work with an allocated caseload of young people and their families/carers.
• To provide specialist comprehensive psychological assessments of young people based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews.
• To provide specialist comprehensive risk assessments of referred patients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment, prevention and management.
• To provide a specialist psychology service in the areas of assessment, individual, group and family/system treatment.
• To provide specialist psychology input to adolescents and their families in at least two different evidence-based therapeutic modalities.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups.
• To make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models.
• To undertake joint therapeutic work with members of the multidisciplinary team as appropriate.
• To provide specialist teaching in psychological theories and methods to the multidisciplinary team.
• To participate in Brookside community and staff meetings.
• To contribute to the evaluation of the multi-disciplinary therapeutic service.
• To help prepare young people for transition to Adult Mental Health Services.
• To facilitate the development of psychological approaches within the services treatment pathways.
• To liaise with and provide consultation/supervision input to other NHS and partner agencies.

Leadership

• To actively participate in the management structures of Brookside CAMHS Tier 4, representing psychology.
• To provide clinical supervision to colleagues, other MDT members, trainee psychologists and junior staff.
• To provide and co-ordinate placements and supervision for trainee clinical psychologists.
• To develop skills in professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision.
• To undertake specialist teaching and training of Brookside colleagues.
• To take an active part in the [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] wide professional support network for child clinical psychology.

Policy/Service Development

• To actively contribute to the development, implementation and evaluation of the service at Brookside through research, service evaluation and audit.
• To identify and propose potential changes to work practices and procedures.
• To propose, organise and participate in research, quality improvement and audit activities.
• To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists.
• To be involved in shortlisting and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists.

Research and Development

• To provide teaching in psychological theory and methods to multi-disciplinary team members.
• To use specialist research knowledge to help design programmes to evaluate [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] child and adolescent services.
• To keep abreast of new working practices and current research evidence.
• To undertake project management, including quality improvement, audit and service evaluation.
• To complete statistical information on the psychology service as required by the Trust.
• To share learning outcomes with colleagues to enhance performance and CPD.

Administration/IT skills

• To attend meetings at relevant psychology based and directorate based forums.
• To remain familiar with relevant professional strategy policies and guidelines.
• To conform to policies about confidentiality and patient access to information.
• To liaise with other NHS agencies as well as voluntary and non-NHS agencies.
• To liaise with staff from all relevant Tier 3 and 4 CAMHS services.
• To conform to the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
• To undertake any other duties under direction of the Strategic and Care Pathway Lead.
• To utilise the electronic patient record system and maintain contemporaneous patient records.

Freedom to Act

• To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of legislation, policies and issues relating to mental health.
• To identify own training needs and find ways to meet these.
• To comply with all Trust policies and procedures.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Doctoral qualification in psychology (e.g. clinical or counselling psychology) accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) - Essential

Experience

• Experience of carrying out a range of assessments of adolescents with significant mental health difficulties in both in-patient and home treatment settings - Essential

Employer Details

• Employer name: [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]
• Address: Brookside - Child and adolescent inpatient unit, Goodmayes, Essex, IG3 8XQ
• Employer's website: https://www.nelft.nhs.uk/
• Contact: Principal Clinical Psychologist Lucy Richardson, [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]