▷ Immediate Start: CAMHS Psychological Therapist

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

CAMHS Psychological Therapist

The closing date is 13 October 2025

We are looking to recruit a Qualification in a UKCP, ACP, or BABCP approved course in CBT, Systemic Therapy, Child Psychotherapy, DBT, or CAT for CYP, as evidence-based psychological therapies recommended by NICE Guidelines relevant to CAMHS to our CORE South CAMHS team. We work with children and young people with moderate to severe mental health disorders, providing comprehensive assessment & intervention as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

We are looking for a candidate who has a strong sense of team working, with an ability to work autonomously and has experience of working with children and young people. They will need the ability to remain calm and resilient as we often work under pressure. We foster a respectful MDT team approach to our working and environment. There is multiagency working and liaison as part of this role.

Our South Core Team are located in Cambridge.

We support our team with regular operational and clinical / professional supervision. We are keen to support and develop our staff based on their individual needs identified throughout appraisal process. We will provide continual development sessions to support you in your role, these will be on an individual basis or via a team approach.

If you are looking for a new challenge or a chance to expand your experience, enjoy variety in your work & wish to be part of a multidisciplinary team striving to make a difference for our community by supporting young people & their families, then we want to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

- To provide specialist evidence-based assessment and therapy to children and adolescents with mental health difficulties.

- To offer advice and consultation on young people/'s psychological care to both professional colleagues and staff from other agencies.

- To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of both the trust/'s and CAMHS/' policies and procedures.

- To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service

About us

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health & social care organisation dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion to improve the health & wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting & empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services not only via inpatient and primary care setting but also with the community. These services include Children, Adult & Older Peoples mental health, Forensic & Specialist mental health, Learning Disabilities, Primary Care & Liaison psychiatry, Substance misuse, Social care, Research & Development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high calibre candidates that share our vision & values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including disabled people & members of our ethnic minorities & LGBTQ+ communities.

Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date should we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.

For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at www.cpft.nhs.uk

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities

- To provide specialist mental health assessments of children and adolescents referred to CAMHS, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with young people, their families and others involved in the young person/'s care (including professionals from other agencies).

- To individually formulate, plan, implement and evaluate plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a young person/'s mental health or other complex psychological problems based on an appropriate conceptual framework adapting/utilising several psychological models and employing methods of proven efficacy, across a range of care settings.

- To be responsible for implementing interventions in own area of speciality for individual children and young people, families/carers, and via groups, within and across teams, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing on different explanatory models including developmental, cognitive, learning theory, biological, and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

- To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual and their family and/or carers or group.

- To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, formulation, treatment and discharge of own clients, and to manage and maintain caseload in line with service requirements.

- To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients/' formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving these children and their families.

- To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients and/or carers and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care and joint work with other agencies.

- To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family/carers, and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures.

Person Specification

Education/Qualification

- Qualification in a relevant field of mental health, health, social welfare, or education

- Qualification and accreditation in a UKCP, ACP, or BABCP approved course in CBT, Systemic Therapy, Child Psychotherapy, DBT, or CAT for CYP

- Accredited by the relevant UK governing body in supervision of psychological therapists and trainees employing therapy in own area of expertise

Experience

- Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of children, young people and families across a range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care or in-patient settings

- Experience of assessing risk to children and young people

- Experiencing of following policies and legislation to safeguard children and young people

- Experience of using Routine Outcome Measures (ROM)

- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision

Skills & Abilities

- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, psychological formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration. This requires the use of highly developed analytical and judgement skills

- Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information, including contentious and highly distressing information, to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS

- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).

Physical Requirements

- Able to tolerate prolonged periods of sitting

- Ability to travel

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.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

£47,810 to £54,710 a year per annum pro rata

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