Job Summary
Permanent
Full Time 37 hours per week

Are you ready to lead a new era of therapeutic practice for children and young people?

Devon's Wellbeing Service is transforming how we support children and families. We're looking for an experienced Clinical Lead to join us on this journey - someone who can combine clinical expertise with visionary leadership to make a real difference.

This is an opportunity to shape a service that is restorative, relational, and trauma-informed, working alongside a passionate multi-disciplinary team. You'll lead clinical practice across Devon, ensuring that children and young people receive the right support at the right time - whether they're on the edge of care, returning home, in care, or leaving care.

For an informal discussion, contact Rebecca Bennett, Service Operational Lead, Rebecca.bennett@devon.gov.uk

Apply now and be part of something transformative.

How to Apply
Please ensure when completing your application form that you provide a supporting statement which demonstrates how you meet the essential and desirable criteria as described in the person specification of the job description. Applications may not be taken forwards if the supporting statement is not adequately completed.

Internal Applicants, please note: If you are an existing DCC employee, please use your iTrent Employee Self Service (ESS) details to log in and apply.

Please click Apply Now to view the job description and person specification.

Main Duties of the Job
What makes this role exciting?

• You'll be at the forefront of a new way of working, embedding psychologically informed approaches and creative therapeutic interventions.
• You'll influence service design and development, ensuring that children and families are partners in shaping their own futures.
• You'll lead and inspire clinicians and practitioners, fostering a culture of curiosity, compassion, and continuous learning.

What we're looking for:

• A qualified psychotherapist or clinician registered with UKCP, BACP, BABCP, HCPC, NMC or equivalent.
• Expertise in trauma recovery, attachment theory, and evidence-based therapeutic approaches.
• Experience of clinical leadership and supervision within multi-disciplinary settings.
• A commitment to relational practice and improving outcomes for children and young people.

About Us
Why join us?

You'll be part of a service that values innovation without losing sight of what works. For those already in the organisation, this is an opportunity to deepen your impact and grow your leadership in a supportive environment. For those joining us, it's a chance to bring fresh ideas and help shape a service that is ambitious for children and families.

Together, we'll create a culture where every child feels safe, understood, and supported to thrive.

Details
Date posted: 03 August 2026
Closing date: 31 August 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 8b
Salary: Depending on experience
£66,582 - £77,368 per annum (depending on experience)
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: F0011-26-10291
Job locations: Devon County Council, County Hall, Topsham Road, EXETER, Devon, EX2 4QD, United Kingdom

Job Responsibilities
Job Purpose
We want to improve outcomes for children and young people in Devon, especially for those who have experienced trauma and harm. The Clinical Lead provides clinical leadership and support to the Wellbeing Service Operational Lead in ensuring the right children get the right kind of support at the right time, within Devon's Wellbeing Service. The approach is rooted in our restorative and relational practice framework and is aligned with the strategic objectives of the Growing Futures and Families First programmes. The aim is to transform and improve the experiences of children in care, while enabling more children to live safely within their families and communities whenever possible.

The Clinical Lead is responsible for the delivery and quality of clinical practice across Devon, providing clinical and managerial leadership, building relationships and overseeing therapeutic practice quality.

The post holder will provide clinical and transformational leadership to a multi-disciplinary therapeutic service that helps children recover from trauma and harmful experiences. The service provides wrap around support for children on the edge of care, returning home, in care, or leaving our care. It consists of skilled relational practitioners and clinicians who provide support, assessments and therapeutic interventions to children and their networks.

The service offers a graduated and timely response to children with emerging and complex needs, to improve their emotional and mental health, family relationships, and the quality of care they receive.

You will support the Wellbeing Service Operational Lead to create a culture of high standards and expectations for children, achieve measurable outcomes and demonstrate improvements and cost effectiveness across the following performance indicators:

• Improved stability for children in care.
• Prevent entry to care, and increase the number of children returning home quickly after entry to care.
• Increase the number of children returning to live in their family network where it's safe and the right place for them to be.
• Increase the number of children and young people who access timely interventions to promote recovery from trauma.
• Increase the number of children who receive timely therapeutic life story work.
• Increase the confidence of foster carers, and children's home support staff, to support and care for children and young people who face complex challenges and improve carer retention rates.
• Increase the number of young people who leave care with family connections and lifelong links.
• Improve feedback from children, young people and our Stand Up Speak Up council about their experiences of care and support.

You will also provide expert clinical guidance to service and the wider organisation to support appropriate prioritisation of need and ensure that therapeutic provisions are appropriate, meet needs, and make a measurable difference to outcomes for children, young people, their families and carers.

Main Duties and Responsibilities
Within this role the post holder will:

• Support the Wellbeing Service Operational Lead by playing a lead role in service design and development, placing restorative and relational practice at the core of decision making.
• Provide high quality line management and supervision to clinical staff, including professional development and performance management.
• Lead a culture of trauma and psychologically informed practice, which develops capacity within the directorate to support children therapeutically.
• Work with children, young people and families to ensure their involvement in service design and delivery, treating them as partners in finding solutions.
• Develop the use of formulation as a shared approach and language to create consistency for children in the help they receive over time.
• Lead and model a culture where creative, person centred and holistic approaches to therapeutic support flourish.
• Provide clinical advice to the Growing Futures programme that supports the development of high-quality therapeutic schools and care provision for children.
• Support practitioners to provide advice and support for young people who are in distress, have unstable social circumstances, or where there are safeguarding concerns. Work alongside front-line teams and partners to effectively hold risk, in a context of safe uncertainty.
• To ensure that clinical interventions are timely and purposeful, planning is individual to the needs of each child or young person and that the voice of children and young people is accurately represented and considered. To be vigilant to the need to work in partnership with parents wherever possible and support their ownership of their family's recovery.
• To provide psychotherapeutic therapies, developing specialist formulations and assessments of young people and their family, formulating plans for their treatment and implementing specialist interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, based on evidenced based approaches.
• Improve access for children and care experienced young people to existing mental health provisions by developing close working relationships with key partners, especially Child and Family Health Devon, Devon Partnership Trust, and the voluntary and community sector. Take a proactive approach to problem resolution in a culture of continuous shared learning.
• Develop systematic methods for the early identification of post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and speech and language difficulties, using existing tools, valuing care profiles, and by introducing new evidence-based methods.
• Lead clinical prioritisation and ensure children and carers in scope are offered early intervention to support their long-term mental health and wellbeing. Plan and organise the work of the clinical services within the Wellbeing Service to best meet the organisation's strategy and priorities.
• Develop a whole service culture that understands the impact of neurodiversity and how to integrate this within assessment and interventions.
• Communicate in an effective, highly skilled and sensitive manner with young people and their families, who may have specific difficulties in understanding and/or communicating and who may be hostile, antagonistic or highly emotional.
• Actively develop good working relationships with senior professional staff and managers across Children's Services to promote the service and ensure the service aligns with the needs of front-line teams.
• Take responsibility for ensuring that clinical practitioners are accessing up-to-date research knowledge of clinical practice as it relates to practice within the service area.
• Undertake the role flexibly across different parts of the service as directed by the Wellbeing Service Operational Lead and deputise for the Wellbeing Service Operational Lead as requested.
• Provide advice and guidance to Managers across the service when teams or individuals across the service have experienced significant vicarious trauma.
• Have oversight of clinical supervision arrangements, including support to in-house residential provision.
• Contribute to the quality assurance framework for the service and help evaluate and monitor the service delivered. To use the findings from the quality assurance framework to drive continuous practice improvement. To contribute to service improvement across the directorate including the analysis of data.

This document outlines the duties for the time being to indicate the level of responsibility. It is not a comprehensive or exclusive list, and the duties may be varied from time to time which do not change the general character to the job or the level of responsibility entailed.

Person Specification
Experience
Essential

• Experience of working with children with trauma histories, attachment insecurity and emotional/behavioural difficulties.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for children's therapeutic care and treatment in a multi-disciplinary setting.
• Experience of clinical supervision.
• Good understanding of attachment theory and trauma recovery approaches and using knowledge to support improved psychological wellbeing.
• Experience of leadership within a multi-disciplinary team.
• Understanding of a restorative and relational strengths based approach to practice and planning.

Desirable

• Experience of working within or with children's services where there are safeguarding concerns for vulnerable adolescents and their families.
• Experience of working with adults with mental health difficulties.
• Experience of writing assessments for Court.
• Knowledge of structures and operations of Local Authority Children's Services.
• Experienced of training and staff development.
• Qualified knowledge and experience of the Non Violent Resistance parenting approach.
• Qualified knowledge and experience of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy.
• Experience and understanding of multi systemic approaches to working with families where there is risk of children entering care.

Qualifications
Essential
Therapeutic qualification providing registration with one of the following registering bodies:

• United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
• British Association of Counsellors & Psychotherapists (BACP)
• British Association of Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapists (BABCP)
• Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) as a mental health nurse
• Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a practitioner psychologist or art/occupational therapists

Desirable

• Additional training in one or more specialised areas of psychological practice.

Management of People
Essential

• Track record of providing high quality supervision and line management of clinical staff from a range of different backgrounds.

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.

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: Devon County Council
Address: Devon County Council, County Hall, Topsham Road, EXETER, Devon, EX2 4QD, United Kingdom
Employer's website: Apply through our website
For questions about the job, contact:
Wellbeing Service Operational Lead
Rebecca Bennett
rebecca.bennett@devon.gvo.uk