Psychological Practitioner

Job summary

Note: Please apply directly through the West Sussex County Council website. Link below in "Supporting Links"

(Clinical Psychologist, Systemic Family Psychotherapist, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist) for the Attach Projects Team.

Salary: NJCGrade 12 £48,226 - £51,356 per annum

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: Full time 37 hours per week. Monday to Friday. Hybrid working will be considered. Office days are flexible except Tuesdays as this is the team meeting day.

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: Tuesday 14th July 2026

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 Childrens 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?

Main duties of the job

Note: Please apply directly through the West Sussex County Council website. Link below in "Supporting Links"

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 Projects team support specialist projects aimed at improving outcomes for children in care.

As the Attach Projects team and the projects that we are working into are relatively new, there are real opportunities for innovation here, including the possibility of shaping a service to fit the needs of the children and services we are supporting. 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.

The role will involve clinically supporting other staff and taking on some supervision of junior colleagues and delegated leadership responsibilities. There will also be opportunities to be involved in service development and training delivery.

The post holders will receive a comprehensive induction which will include opportunities to shadow and to co-work.

About us

Note: Please apply directly through the West Sussex County Council website. Link below in "Supporting Links"

The main projects we work into at the moment are:

REACH this is a wraparound service supporting children to step down from residential homes into foster care. REACH also support foster families where there is a risk of placement breakdown and residential care is likely. REACH is a small team of social workers and child and family workers. It is anticipated that the psychologists working into REACH would offer consultation to professional networks, therapeutic parenting support to foster carers and holding a small caseload of direct therapy cases.

The Childrens Collaborative this is an innovative project aimed at reducing the number of children that are placed in expensive out of area placements with independent providers. The Childrens Collaborative works with commissioners and independent providers to increase the number of residential placements available locally and offers training and therapeutic support through West Sussex County Council. The ATTACH Projects team will be working with the Childrens Collaborative to provide a therapeutic offer for the residential homes within this project. It is anticipated that this will include therapeutic parenting training/ support for residential carers, reflective practice, consultation and team formulation, as well as holding a small caseload of direct therapy cases.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Following the successful TUPE transfer of our specialist psychological services into the local authority last year, we are embarking on an exciting journey to realign and integrate a range of specialist social care and psychological interventions under one roof in our Psychological Hub.

The transformation offers a unique opportunity to innovate ad deliver creative, impactful services whilst building on established, collaborative relationships between psychological services and the social care workforce. We have a wide range and depth of expertise and experience within the services and a strong ethos of working together to meet the needs of these vulnerable groups of children and families.

The Psychological Hub is led by two consultant clinical psychologists, each leading one of the two service areas: - The RESTORE Service and the Children We Care for Therapeutic Service (ATTACH service) (See About Us document for more details).

The ATTACH service provides psychological support for our Children We Care For, Care Leavers, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking young people, and Special Guardianship teams and the support extends to our Residential and Fostering services.

We are looking to recruit a clinician with an appropriate therapeutic training and experience, e.g. clinical psychology, systemic therapy, or child psychotherapy, to join the team to help us expand our reach.

As a therapeutic team, ATTACH offers a reflective space for social workers to consider the impact of developmental trauma on children and young peoples emotional well-being. We focus upon co-constructing a shared understanding (formulation) with colleagues and carers, to help understand complex presentations and hidden emotional needs, supporting children in recovering from developmental trauma and forming meaningful attachments.

Our service assists carers in implementing therapeutic parenting and supports social workers in delivering relationship-based social work, while appreciating the personal impact of this work on both carers and professionals themselves.

Additionally, we provide direct assessments and therapeutic interventions for foster care and special guardianship families, unaccompanied and asylum-seeking children and young people being cared for by foster carers and residential carers, as well as for children living in West Sussex residential care homes.

About the job

You will be working as a member of the ATTACH Projects team, within the wider ATTACH service, providing a high-quality specialist psychological service to children, young people, their carers and the network surrounding their care placement. Work will include undertaking psychologically informed assessments and therapeutic interventions in addition to providing consultation to the professional network.

Consultation to social work colleagues, facilitating reflective practice groups and bespoke trainings form a large part of the ATTACH service therapeutic offer. The aim is to help improve workforce understanding and confidence in a shared language around the impact of trauma on children and young people. Additional responsibilities will include supporting the team in service development and in the writing and delivery of training.

As a clinical psychologist / systemic therapist / or child psychotherapist for our service, you will:

Deliver evidence-informed, integrative, and systemic interventions.

Work closely within a multi-disciplinary/multiagency environment to design and implement innovative service models.

Champion a compassionate, trauma-aware, relational approach at all levels within childrens social care.

Help shape the future of our Psychological Services Hub, contributing to its growth and impact.

What youll need to succeed

The ideal candidate will bring:

A clear communication style, able to describe and share complex information to the wider team and social work colleagues.

Experience of working in multi-agency settings would be advantageous.

A proven track record in delivering evidence-based interventions, with a systemic and integrative focus.

An understanding and awareness of trauma-informed practices and relational approaches.

A passion for working with children and young people cared for by the Local Authority and advocating for their specific needs.

Enthusiasm to develop therapeutic offers, contributing to the wider team and developing new ways of working.

An interest in developing skills to deliver psychologically informed training teams across the childrens social care workforce, to help improve practice.

You will have experience in undertaking assessments and therapeutic interventions with children and their families. Ideally, you will also have good experience of working with children who are placed in the care of the local authority, and/or those placed with special guardians. This will include a detailed understanding of the needs of children who present with issues arising from relational trauma and the support needs of those who care for these young people in foster, special guardianship, and residential homes.

Specific expertise or interest in delivering Dyadic Developmental Informed Psychotherapy, PACE-based interventions and delivering PACE-based training, would be an advantage. Opportunities to receive further training in this area will be provided. An awareness of the intersections of developmental trauma with neurodiversity and other psychological/emotional needs will be desirable.

Candidates will also demonstrate a passion for working with care experienced children and young people, and a drive to play a key role in developing therapeutic offers for the wider social care workforce, to enhance the lives of these young people. Experience of providing consultations to professionals and working with multi-agency networks would be beneficial.

Key responsibilities

Clinical

Operate as a specialist practitioner and manage an appropriate clinical caseload.

Ensure professional contribution associated to professional registration to the provision of quality clinical care, promoting evidence-based practice and adhering to appropriate performance standards.

Provide a specialised range of clinical interventions and demonstrate knowledge of models of practice and how to apply these.

Monitor, evaluate and modify intervention to measure progress and ensure effectiveness of interventions.

Provide specialist clinical assessment, formulation, intervention, and review with children, young people and the team around their care placement

Contribute to the development of multi-disciplinary best practice clinical guidelines.

Provide clinical supervision to more junior staff and provide support and guidance.

Ensure that up to date written and electronic records and activity data are maintained in accordance with all professional standards, and to provide specialist reports as relevant to the clients needs and team practice.

Adhere to all relevant risk management policies and procedures.

Maintain accurate records of all contacts with children, young people and their carers and social workers, ensuring timely input into the clinical database

Evaluate the outcomes of interventions with children, young people and carers using standard routine outcome measure, including identifying where a need has not been met.

Communication

Ensure effective communication with all parts of the service, other agencies, and people who use services and their carers.

Communicate effectively with clients and with carers and the professionals supporting them.

Attend strategic meetings as directed by senior team members

Develop and maintain effective communication structures, facilitating two-way communication on professional and service issues.

Provide specialist advice to team members, clients, carers and the wider network.

Liaise regularly with senior colleagues.

Management, Leadership, Recruitment, Policy and Service Development

Advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and /or organisational matters need addressing.

Contribute knowledge and expertise to policy and service development through participation, where practical, in special interest groups regionally, that may help develop the service further.

Manage the workloads or junior staff or trainees related to candidates professional background e.g. assistant psychologists and clinical psychology trainees or child psychotherapy trainees etc.

Research and Service Evaluation

Utilise theory and evidence-based literature to support practice.

Undertake audit and service evaluation with colleagues within the service, to help develop service offers, responsive to service experience feedback.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Appropriate professional level training for qualification as recognised by appropriate professional body in Clinical Psychology / Systemic Therapy / Child Psychotherapy, as appropriate.

Key Skills

Essential

• Experience, or a keen interest post-qualifying of working as a qualified
• clinician as a clinical psychologist, systemic therapist, or child psychotherapist with children, young people and their families.
• A high capacity for compassion to others, and able to adjust and read others and situations intuitively, in order to model and offer emotionally attuned support.
• Ability to communicate effectively presenting information that is accessible, engaging and accurate.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professionals.
• Ability to develop partnership working with individuals, and across teams effectively.
• Skills in self-management including time management.

Experience

Essential

• Evidence of post qualification study.
• Registration with relevant professional body.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by professional body e.g. HCPC, BACP or UKCP.
• Good working knowledge of the population within the service or similar. Clinical expertise in therapeutic assessment, planning, writing and delivering therapy with children and young people presenting with a range of biopsychosocial problems; young people who with good reason, may be mistrustful of services.
• Training in the use of standardised assessment tools and experience in
• applying a range of assessment tools and wide knowledge of clinical
• approaches.
• Extensive experience as a qualified mental health practitioner.
• Broad experience of working with clients with a range of mental health difficulties.
• Experience with children who have experienced trauma.
• Experience of both group and individual work.
• Experience of multidisciplinary working.

Desirable

• Experience of supervising staff and students
• Experience of multi-agency work
• CAMHS experience
• Research experience

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).

Employer details

Employer name

West Sussex County Council

Address

Glebelands

Middle Road

Shoreham-by-Sea

West Sussex

BN43 6GA

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

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