Job summaryAmbitious, creative, clinically skilled? Passionate about mental health services for children and young people?This is an exciting opportunity to join Suffolk's innovative Mental Health Support Team (MHST) as a Clinical Lead. MHSTs play a key role in delivering early intervention within education settings, ensuring children and young people access appropriate mental health support more quickly.
You will provide leadership, clinical expertise and operational support, working closely with the West Area Leadership Team, to deliver a high-quality service.
The team is currently transitioning to a new Neighbourhood Team model and preparing for further expansion from January 2027. Initially, you will support this transition before helping to implement and develop the new model.
Based in the West Area, covering West Suffolk, you will be part of a leadership team supporting three Neighbourhood Teams. Within the first year of the post, there will be a requirement to also support the East Area covering five Neighbourhood Teams in East Suffolk to support maternity leave cover and the wider expansion and development of the team.
Applications are welcomed from a range of professional backgrounds but must have a relevant professional therapy qualification or equivalent.
Interviews are anticipated to take place on 17th September.
Main duties of the jobYou will be responsible for providing a high-quality early intervention service to children, young people (and their families) experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties. You will build relationships with and work across a range of education settings.
The role combines direct specialist clinical assessment, formulation and intervention with clinical leadership and delegated operational leadership with responsibility for clinical quality, caseload management, supervision structures, risk escalation, governance, outcome monitoring, service development and partnership working.
You will use your clinical skills and experience for direct delivery of evidence-based interventions, consultation to education settings and delivery of whole/school college approaches. You will utilise skills and knowledge of CBT and child and adolescent mental health practice and support service delivery and development through collaboration and coproduction.
You will clinically supervise and line manage Senior Clinicians (Band 7). You will work with the West MHST Area Leadership team to share responsibilities to support the team. Travel across Suffolk will be required.
About usAt Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust, inclusion is at the heart of how we work. We are committed to creating a fair, transparent and accessible recruitment process where every candidate has the opportunity to succeed.
We actively encourage applications from people from all backgrounds, particularly those currently underrepresented in our workforce, including those from the global majority. We recognise that not everyone has equal access to opportunities and are working to address this.
We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process and ensuring all candidates receive a positive and equitable experience.
Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.
Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established professional networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.
DetailsDate posted10 August 2026
Pay schemeAgenda for change
BandBand 8a
Salary£57,528 to £64,750 a year
pa/ pro rata
ContractPermanent
Working patternFull-time
Reference number246-WSU8195518
Job locationsHospital Road
Bury St Edmunds
IP33 3ND
United Kingdom
Job descriptionJob responsibilitiesA job in the Suffolk MHSTs will inevitably be challenging and demanding at times, but it will also be immensely rewarding and provide you with great opportunities to make a genuine difference to the lives of others. You will join a service that has developed a caring, creative and hard-working environment; your ideas about how this service continues to develop and grow will be highly valued.
This is an exciting time of MHST expansion as we move to covering 100% of education settings, including independent and specialist schools.. In Suffolk, NSFT are developing and transforming our other early intervention mental health services and working closely with our partners in the Local Authority and the Voluntary Sector. Changes across services are driven by the needs of local communities, with the aim of embedding mental health services within the community and truly bringing the expertise to where it is needed.
We would welcome any informal conversations about these roles, including about the possibility of part-time/job shares. Please do contact us for more information.
For further details regarding the role, please see the attached job description and person.Person SpecificationQualificationsEssential- Relevant professional qualification or equivalent e.g. Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, accredited CBT Therapist, qualification in Systemic Family Therapy, qualification in child and adolescent psychotherapy
- Appropriate and valid UK professional registration. This could be in psychology, systemic family therapy, psychotherapy, social work, nursing, occupational health
Desirable- Leadership and/or Management training / qualification
ExperienceEssential- Line management and Leadership experience within services.
- Experience of working with a range of complex and challenging behaviours and exercising full clinical responsibility for psychological treatment, having responsibility for the management of a caseload
- Well-developed skills, knowledge and experience in developmental psychology, attachment, trauma theories and other common mental health difficulties
Desirable- Experience of operational leadership of a service, including safer staffing, rostering and delegated budgets.
SkillsEssential- Skills in consultation to professional and non - professional groups.
- Skills in training and supervision.
- Skills in creating and delivering presentations and training programmes.
KnowledgeEssential- Knowledge and understanding of current local and national drivers for delivery of early intervention mental health services.
Disclosure and Barring Service CheckThis 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 SponsorshipApplications 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 RegistrationApplicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
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.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).Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window). 
