Clinical/Counselling Psychologist - CAMHS Child in Care

Clinical/Counselling Psychologist - CAMHS Child in Care

The closing date is 11 May 2026

This is an exciting new role to lead on the psychological care offered to young people (age 16-25) supported by the Leaving Care Team. You will work closely with the young persons (YP) network to support a psychologically informed understanding of their emotional and mental health needs by providing consultation and trauma informed formulation to professionals and carers and working directly with YP where clinically indicated.

This is a part time role working 22.5 hours.

You will be part of the CLA Psychology Service, a service provided to Herefordshire's care experienced YP; supporting professionals, carers and children. You will also be part of a team of psychologists in Herefordshire CAMHS working with children with complex difficulties.

You would be expected to have a strong visible presence in the Leaving Care Team, working closely with Personal Advisors and Social Workers in supporting YP who are care experienced and providing a link role between CAMHS, AMH and Social Care. This post has been created to increase the therapeutic offer to YP leaving care. Experience of offering trauma informed and attachment based interventions with an understanding of the challenges this client group faces is essential for this role.

Main duties of the job

In the exciting new post, you would be expected to offer:

Highly specialist assessment for children in collaboration with social workers, personal advisors, carers and the wider professional network.

Highly specialist trauma informed and attachment based psychological interventions, 1:1 and groups.

Trauma informed formulation and consultation to social care teams, including complex risk management planning, to inform pathway planning.

Supervision and advice to social care teams to support a trauma informed and psychologically informed understanding of CLA needs.

Close collaboration with other services supporting CYP, e.g. Adult Mental Health, Safe Connections, EPs.

Provide specialist advice on recommendations from specialist assessments.

Provide advice and liaison to professionals where a referral to CAMHS or Adult Mental Health for specialist intervention is required.

Use outcome/psychometric measures to monitor the effectiveness and experience of CYP and professionals.

Keep high quality documentation and contribute to reports evaluating the role, identifying areas for improvement.

About us

At Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, we are working together to deliver outstanding care. We run community hospitals and community health services across Worcestershire and provide mental health and learning disability services across both Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

Our people (all 4500+ of them) provide services for people of all ages, experiencing both physical and/or mental health conditions from over 100 sites.

We will support you to thrive; offer flexible working options for a great work life balance, help you fulfil your ambitions, and empower you to make positive changes within your team or service. We value diversity and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities.

What we offer;

• 27 days leave plus bank holidays, increasing up to 33 days with long service
• Generous NHS pension and enhanced pay when you work unsocial hours
• Flexible and agile working opportunities
• Great maternity, paternity, and adoption support
• Wide range of supportive staff networks
• Health and wellbeing opportunities

If you would like to know more, please visit our website.

We encourage you to read the attached applicant guidance notes.

Sharing your data

As a data controller we may sometimes need to process your data to pursue our legitimate business interests, for example to request a survey from you (optional), to support the Trust's understanding of where you gained interest in working for the Trust.

Job responsibilities

Applicants for this post would need to demonstrate strengths in:

Being able to engage and empower children, young people and the adults supporting them using psychological interventions and psychologically informed practice based on best clinical and professional evidence.

MDT and multi agency working using consultation approaches to support the therapeutic care to children and young people.

Clinical supervision skills and being able to adapt these to professionals with different levels of training and knowledge of child mental health and trauma informed care.

Experience of providing teaching on child mental health, trauma informed care and attachment using both formal and informal teaching opportunities.

Use of outcome measures, gaining and learning from feedback to improve and develop services.

For full details of the duties and criteria please refer to the job description and person specification attached.

Person Specification Knowledge

• Knowledge required specific to the role and clinical area.
• Advanced theoretical and applied knowledge of psychological approaches for people with psychological problems including specialised psychological assessments and interventions for patients with complex psychological presentations and physical health conditions.
• Well developed psychometric assessment skills.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis, as practiced within the field of Clinical/Counselling Psychology.

Qualifications

• BSc/BA Honours degree at 2:1 or above in psychology.
• Post graduate Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS).
• Post qualification training in specific, evidence based techniques for use with clients with complex psychological presentations and/or physical health difficulties, across the age span.
• Evidence of regular further professional training and experience as required by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and the BPS.
• Eligible for registration as a Chartered Psychologist (Clinical or Counselling) by the BPS.
• Eligible for registration as a Practitioner member of the BPS Division of Clinical/Counselling Psychology.
• Registered with HCPC as a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist.
• I understand that I will be asked to provide original certificates to verify my qualifications at point of offer.

Skills and Abilities

• Ability to challenge poor behaviour.
• A positive attitude and able to act on feedback.
• Ability to praise and be supportive to others.
• Highly developed and effective communication skills, both oral and written, including ability to communicate complex, highly personal and sensitive information.
• Advanced ability to develop and maintain a therapeutic relationship, appropriately.
• Able to communicate effectively within the team and build good sound working relationships.
• Good presentation and teaching skills; able to use multimedia materials for both formal large group situations and small informal settings.
• Ability to use IT equipment including literature searches, databases, patient information systems.
• Able to prioritise own work and deal with competing demands to work effectively, within a highly stressed work environment.
• Committed to promote patients' right, independence and choice e.g., through informed consent for interventions.

Additional Criteria

• Able to meet the travel requirements of the post.

Experience

• Experience required specific to the role and clinical area.
• A minimum of 2 years of experience working as a qualified Clinical/Counselling Psychologist within the relevant area.
• Sufficient training and experience to be recognised by the Division of Clinical/Counselling Psychology as a suitably qualified psychologist to offer clinical placements to trainee Clinical/Counselling Psychologists.
• Training and experience in the application of psychological knowledge within a number of different specialties.
• Experience of assessing and providing a wide range of psychological interventions to patients presenting with the full degree of clinical severity and across a range of clinical mental health presentations.
• Experience of conducting clinically relevant research.

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.

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust