Job summary
As Senior Clinical Lead (Band 8b) within the CREST team, you will provide expert clinical leadership, assessment, and evidence-based interventions for children and young people in mental health crisis.

Working with the Integrated Team Manager and Strategic Clinical Lead, you will ensure high-quality, NICE-concordant care, deliver robust clinical supervision, and lead high-risk cases to prevent hospital admissions and support timely acute discharge. Based at Maidstone TV Studios, you will foster strong multi-agency partnerships across Kent and Medway.

The successful candidate will hold a doctoral qualification in clinical or counselling psychology, or equivalent for psychotherapists, have significant experience of working within mental health services (ideally children and young people's services), and have membership with relevant organisation such as NMC, HCPC, BABCP, BPC or UKCP.

This position will involve travelling between different trust sites. Therefore, the post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010).
Main duties of the job

• You will have clinical lead responsibilities for the service, and work in collaboration with the team manager to run a safe and effective service. In the team managers absence you will deputise as the most senior member of the team.
• Oversee caseload of assessments, individual and group interventions; and share your clinical expertise with the team to build their knowledge and skills.
• You will be able to work confidently with complex mental health presentations expierenced by children and young people, and be able to work with the personal and professional network that is important to that young person.
• There is an expectation that you will attend organisational meetings to represent the local team, contributing to the delivery of evidence based interventions and identifying training needs of the clinical team.
• You will offer regular clinical supervision to the team; and may be asked to support the development of trainees in other areas where they require clinical supervision that is within your own professional competence.

About us
We are Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway and are rated 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Our teams support children, young people and adults with a wide range of mental health needs. We also provide specialist services, including all-age eating disorder services and neurodevelopmental assessments for children and young people, such as autism and ADHD.

Because we work across the whole county and across hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the people we serve.

Our vision is simple: we are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It's why we're passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. Everything we do is guided by our values: caring, inclusive, curious and confident.

Join us if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that's working well together.

We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one.
Details
Date posted: 04 August 2026
Closing date: 18 August 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 8b
Salary: £66,582 to £77,368 a year
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time
Reference number: 380-CED042
Job locations: Maidstone TV Studios, Vinters Business Park, New Cut Road, Maidstone, ME14 5NZ, United Kingdom

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

Person Specification
Qualifications and Registrations
Essential

• To be eligible for registration as a full member of the appropriate professional body (e.g. NMC, HCPC, BABCP, UKCP).

Experience
Essential

• Extensive experience delivering skilled, evidence-based interventions for children and young people presenting with complex emotional, behavioural, and mental health needs, including those experiencing acute distress or crisis.
• Experience of initiating, organising and planning inter-agency meetings aimed at setting in place a treatment package tailored to the individual
• Extensive experience of clinical supervision of post-graduate qualified psychological practitioners.

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 contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Operational Team Manager
Ian Markin
I.markin@nhs.net
07548161268