The Opportunity
Salary: Pro-rata for 25.9 hours £33,758-£35,949 per annum / Pro-rata for 22.2 hours £28,936 - £30,814 per annum (FTE Equivalent Salary: Grade 12 £48,226 - £51,356 per annum)
Contract Type: Permanent
Working Pattern: Part-time, Monday to Friday. Hybrid working will be considered. Days are flexible except Tuesdays as this is the team meeting day; Thursday and Friday are quieter days in the team; would be advantageous if successful candidates could work at least one of these days.
Two part-time roles available:
- 1x 25.9 hrs per week (0.7FTE) - supporting Children in Care
- 1 x 22.2 hrs per week (0.6FTE) - supporting Children in Care who are unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people (UASC)
Location: Based at Glebelands, Shoreham-by-Sea but will be required to provide countywide coverage.
Please note: You will need to be able to travel independently around the county, including to areas that may not be easily accessible by public transport. Pool cars and pool bikes are available and having a driving license is highly desirable.
Interviews are scheduled for: Monday 13th July
Make a Real Difference to the Lives of Children in Care
- Are you a trauma-informed practitioner, passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people in care?
- Are you looking for an opportunity to develop in a growing, evidence-informed therapeutic service?
- Would you thrive in providing training, consultation and reflective practice to staff groups within Children’s Services?
- Do you have experience of providing a range of therapeutic interventions for children and families?
- Do you have an interest in improving outcomes for children in care and/or improving outcomes for unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people?
If so, we would love to hear from you.
Attach is a psychology-led service supporting children in care that has recently launched within West Sussex County Council. We offer direct assessment and therapy, support for foster and residential carers and reflective supervision and training for social work colleagues with the aim of improving the lives of young people in care.
The Attach service is made up of experienced mental health practitioners who have worked for most of their careers in the NHS, and have all moved across to social care. We are excited to be part of West Sussex County Council and are learning together about the opportunities available here. Working within a local authority our referrers are our colleagues; this enables closer working relationships and opportunities to influence change at both a systemic and individual level. There are regular training opportunities within the local authority.
The role focuses on improving emotional wellbeing, placement stability, relational health and trauma informed practice across children’s social care services. The post holder will provide psychologically informed assessment, consultation, formulation, therapeutic intervention and workforce support for children and young people who have experienced trauma, adversity and disrupted attachment and who, for the most part are growing up outside their birth families.
We are looking for clinicians who are passionate about improving outcomes for children in care and who have energy and enthusiasm to help grow and shape a new service.
More about the role
We have two roles:
1.) Psychological practitioner – Grade 12, 0.7FTE: support to Children in Care and their carers/networks
You will be part of a growing team of clinicians, in responding to requests for specialist therapeutic support for children we care for. We are not a mental health service, but instead in an early intervention service – providing psychologically informed care to strengthen relationships between children we care for and their key adults, and where needed direct individual, dyadic or systemic therapeutic interventions with children and their parent-people. You will be part of regular triage meetings, where you will share in clinical decision making, as well as clinical team and business meetings.
Unlike more traditional mental health service models, in Attach we provide a range of different interventions to meet the needs of the population we service offering:
- Drop In consultations to social work colleagues, with the aim of providing a thinking space to unpick clinical dilemmas and develop psychological formulations with related care plans
- A series of time-limited consultation spaces to adults caring for children – with the aim of both making sense of behaviours that cause concern, and exploring ways to move forward together
- Leading reflective practise groups for social work colleagues
- Collaborating with colleagues in delivering a range of different training offers to the network of adults involved in caring for children
2.) Psychological practitioner – Grade12, 0.6FTE: support to Children in Care who are unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people and their carers/networks
In this role, whilst also part of the growing Attach team described above, this post would work closely with a co-worker supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people and their networks e.g. Personal Advisors in the Care Leavers service and social workers in the Child Asylum Team. The current post holder has been a lone clinician developing these pathways of support for the past couple of years. They are working as a mental health practitioner (occupational therapist by profession), and they provide 0.7FTE of support.
The UASC role will hold a caseload of unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people who have been referred by their social worker, due to concerns about their emotional wellbeing e.g. sleep, anxiety, depression, isolation and trauma through their journey to the UK. Together, you would triage these referrals and individually develop and disseminate packages of care to young people. This will include initial assessments, network meetings to share an understanding of well-being need, as well as a variety of evidenced based and trauma-informed interventions which are time-limited. Sometimes this work necessitates working alongside an interpreter.
Examples of additional offers which are currently offered include offering a reflective practice space for social workers in the Child Asylum Team, adapting trauma-narrative work with young people, attending dyadic developmental psychotherapy training level 1 (DDP level 1), and making use of ideas in supporting carers and social workers. Finally, a monthly therapeutic nature-based group is delivered, co-run with the South Downs Trust. Feedback from UASC young people have described appreciating feeling connected with their peers and re-connecting to nature; the group has also helped to boost their self-esteem and reduce feelings of isolation.
In both roles, there are real opportunities for innovation here as the Attach team; this includes the possibility of shaping a service to fit the needs of the children and services we are supporting.
About you
We’re seeking confident and compassionate clinicians who have the following key skills and experience:
- Relevant professional qualifications in either:
- Professional Doctorate level training in Clinical Psychology and HCPC-registered as Practitioner Psychologists, or
- Professional Masters level training Systemic Family Psychotherapy and HCPC registered
- Professional Doctorate level training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy and HCPC registered
- Professional qualification in Occupational therapy and HCPC registered.
- Experience of working with children, young people, and their families and knowledge of key legislation.
- Some experience of delivering interventions for Children in Care with a systemic and integrative focus is desirable.
- Good understanding of trauma-informed and attachment-based models, and an interest in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and/or sensory attachment models. We have a training budget available and could support further training in DDP if needed.
- Demonstrates a good understanding of the needs of children who present with issues arising from developmental trauma and disrupted early attachments, and the support needs of those who care for them in foster, special guardianship, and residential homes.
- And/or demonstrates a good understanding of the needs of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people, and the support needs of those who care for them in foster, residential or supported lodgings homes.
- Clinical expertise in delivering psychologically informed assessment and therapy with
children and young people presenting with a range of complex psychological
problems and who may be mistrustful of services, alongside support to their
families and other care providers.
- Excellent communication skills enabling accessible and engaging psychological training to different audiences, to inform and improve the practice across services.
- Has experience and/or interested in delivering consultation, training, and reflective supervision to staff groups
- Has some experience of clinical supervision and able to support colleagues around job planning, managing a range of competing priorities, and a commitment to developing a supportive team culture
- Experience of working with neurodiverse young people and an understanding of the intersection between developmental trauma and neurodevelopmental needs would be an advantage
- Confident managing risk and complexity in multi-agency environments
- You will need to be able to travel independently around the county, including to areas that may not be easily accessible by public transport. Pool cars and pool bikes are available and having a driving license is highly desirable.
For more information on the Key Skills, Qualifications and/or Experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached. Please refer to the key skills in your cover letter as these will be used for shortlisting criteria.
About us and What we offer
The Attach Service delivers psychological support into our Children We Care For, Care Leavers, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking and Special Guardianship teams and includes support to our Residential and Fostering services and into our two specialist projects.
The Attach team delivers a range of evidence-informed support to children in care and the professionals and carers around them, helping them understand and respond to the impact of developmental trauma, disrupted attachment, and hidden emotional needs. Within West Sussex Fostering, there is a drive and vision to deliver therapeutic parenting within foster care and kinship, underpinned by DDP principles and an attitude of PACE. Please see the West Sussex Fostering Vision Statement document for further details of the PACE culture ambition in the Information Pack.
Here at West Sussex County Council, we are ambitious for our children and our workforce. We are committed to improving our services for the children and families in West Sussex we support. You will join us as at a key time on our improvement journey. That’s why we need professionals, like you, who really want to be part of the positive change that is happening for children. Be part of an ambitious improvement plan and make a significant difference to children and families in West Sussex. There has never been a more rewarding time to join.
The post holders will receive a comprehensive induction which will include opportunities to shadow and to co-work. The post holders will receive regular clinical supervision from senior colleagues in the Attach team, in addition to ongoing opportunities for co-working, attending a team journal club to keep current with evidence-based thinking, and taking part in regular team case discussions. Practitioners will receive professional supervision appropriate to their core training, and this will be purchased externally where this expertise does not exist within the service. The team has links to the University of Surrey Clinical Psychology Doctorate programme and the opportunity to provide placements to Clinical Psychology trainees. We are also interested in making links with other professional training courses.
What we offer:
- A welcoming and forward-thinking psychological service embedded within Children’s Services influencing how West Sussex supports children in care through compassionate, psychologically informed approaches.
- Hybrid working arrangements to support your work-life balance
- Opportunities to shape an integrated psychological model
- Management and clinical supervision by senior clinicians within the Attach service
- Peer support and ongoing CPD
- An inclusive and values-driven team culture that supports innovation and reflective practice
As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work they do. Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including the following:
For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.
Further Information
The reference number for these roles is CAFHE06371.
We welcome informal enquiries ahead of application to explore how this opportunity might fit your professional goals and values.
For an informal conversation or for further information regarding these roles, please contact Dr Nicky Crockett - [email protected]
For any issues or queries regarding your application please contact [email protected]
Information Pack:
- Job description – Psychological practitioner
- About Us
- West Sussex Fostering Vision statement
To apply: To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV (maximum 4 pages) and Cover Letter (maximum 2 pages). In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.
Additionally, please make it clear in your cover letter which post you are interested in applying for.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to HCPC registration, an enhanced DBS check, 5 years referencing and a health check.
Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success. If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application, please contact [email protected].
We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.
