Job summary
The post holder will work in Islington Children's Centres and may work across other CAMHS teams within the service, depending on the number of days they work in Islington CAMHS.

Work in Islington Children's Centres, involves assessing and working clinically with children under 5 and their families, providing staff consultation and training and delivering parent workshops.

The CAMHS in Bright Start Islington Children's Centres Team is a small team of experienced CAMHS clinicians, working within Islington's 16 children's centres. We aim to see families quickly and offer a welcoming, inclusive service for children under 5, and their families, from all backgrounds and cultures. Our focus is on supporting parent-child relationships and helping every child have the best possible start. We do this by early identification, preventative and early intervention work, including offering parent-child and/or parent-only sessions. We also work alongside professionals in Bright Start, education, and health services, (offering consultation, workshops and training) to support families.

We provide 5 sessions for parents and their children under 5, exhibiting common developmental, emotional or behaviour difficulties, such as tantrums, anxiety, eating, toileting, or relationship challenges. Where necessary, we can offer longer term support, particularly where there has been exposure to difficult or traumatic experiences.

Main duties of the job

• To provide highly specialist mental health assessments of children aged 0-5 and their families, using individual, parent and family interviews, formal developmental, and other assessment methods as appropriate.
• To provide generic, specialist and discipline-specific preventative and treatment interventions for children under-5 and their families.
• To facilitate and co-facilitate workshops and training in line with service capacity and clinical need.
• To provide highly specialist advice, guidance and consultation on child mental health prevention for children under 5 and treatment, to other professionals, including education settings and other health, local authority and voluntary sector child professionals.
• To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients.
• To liaise with other health, education, voluntary sector and social care staff, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to clients.
• To work autonomously to provide treatment sessions based within the community.
• To be flexible in working within other Early Years Teams and CAMHS teams
• If indicated, to undertake ADHD assessments and Screen for Autism with support from an MDT

About us
Whittington Health mission, vision and goals
We have an excellent reputation for being innovative, responsive and flexible to the changing clinical needs of the local population. We are treating more patients than ever before and are dedicated to improving services to deliver the best for our patients. Our mission Helping local people live longer, healthier lives. Our vision Provide safe, personal, co-ordinated care for the community we serve. Our goals We have developed six key strategic goals to make sure we continue to support people to live longer, healthier lives.

• To secure the best possible health and wellbeing for all our community
• To integrate and coordinate care in person-centred teams
• To deliver consistent, high quality, safe services
• To support our patients and users in being active partners in their care
• To be recognised as a leader in the fields of medical and multi-professional education, and population-based clinical research
• To innovate and continuously improve the quality of our services to deliver the best outcomes for our local population

Whittington values
Our values underpin everything we do. Our staff are committed to delivering the following values in everything they do.

Our ICARE values have been created by our staff and are embedded in our appraisal and planning processes and form part of our staff excellence awards.

Read more about our values on our public website.

Details
Date posted
10 August 2026
Pay scheme
Agenda for change
Band
Band 7
Salary
£58,133 to £65,261 a year
Pro rata per annum
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Part-time
Reference number
220-WHT-4160
Job locations
Islington Community CAMHS, Northern Health Centre,
580 Holloway Road
London
N7 6LB
United Kingdom

Job description
Job responsibilities
The post holder will work in Islington Childrens Centres and may work across other CAMHS teams within the service, depending on the number of days they work in Islington CAMHS.

Work in Islington Childrens Centres, involves assessing and working clinically with children under 5 and their families, providing staff consultation and training and delivering parent workshops.

The CAMHS in Bright Start Islington Childrens Centres Team is a small team of experienced CAMHS clinicians, working within Islingtons 16 childrens centres. We aim to see families quickly and offer a welcoming, inclusive service for children under 5, and their families, from all backgrounds and cultures. Our focus is on supporting parentchild relationships and helping every child have the best possible start. We do this by early identification, preventative and early intervention work, including offering parent-child and/or parent-only sessions. We also work alongside professionals in Bright Start, education, and health services, (offering consultation, workshops and training) to support families.

We provide 5 sessions for parents and their children under 5, exhibiting common developmental, emotional or behaviour difficulties, such as tantrums, anxiety, eating, toileting, or relationship challenges. Where necessary, we can offer longer term support, particularly where there has been exposure to difficult or traumatic experiences.

We pride ourselves on being a team who support the families and staff that we work with and welcome any feedback that can help us continue to deliver the best possible early years service.

Every clinicians job plan also includes dedicated time for meetings, supervision and administration and opportunities for continued professional development.

Main duties
A. Clinical

• To provide highly specialist mental health assessments of children aged 0-5 and their families, using individual, parent and family interviews, formal developmental, and other assessment methods as appropriate.
• To provide generic, specialist and discipline-specific preventative and treatment interventions for children under-5 and their families.
• To facilitate and co-facilitate workshops and training in line with service capacity and clinical need.
• To provide highly specialist advice, guidance and consultation on child mental health prevention for children under 5 and treatment, to other professionals, including education settings and other health, local authority and voluntary sector child professionals.
• To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients.
• To liaise with other health, education, voluntary sector and social care staff, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to clients.
• To work autonomously to provide treatment sessions based within the community.
• To be flexible in working within other Early Years Teams and CAMHS teams
• If indicated, to undertake ADHD assessments and Screen for Autism with support from an MDT

B. Teaching, training and supervision

• To continue to develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision.
• To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychologists and/or psychotherapists, as appropriate.
• To provide advice, consultation, training, reflective practice groups and supervision, where appropriate, to other health and social care staff working with the client group.

C. Management, policy and service development

• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
• To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

D. Research and service evaluation

• To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
• To contribute to service development (and if necessary, undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research).

E. General

• To ensure the development and maintenance of the highest personal standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the postholders line manager.
• To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues of relevance to the service and client group.
• To undertake such other duties and responsibilities, appropriate to the grade of the post, as may be agreed with relevant managers.

Person Specification
Education and qualifications
Essential

• Post-graduate/doctoral level qualification in clinical psychology, child and adolescent psychotherapy, counselling psychology, systemic family therapy, educational psychotherapy, art psychotherapy as recognised by HCPC and ACP. Or other relevant postgraduate qualification and registration body

Skills & Abilities
Essential

• Skills & Abilities in generic and discipline specific mental health assessments and treatments of children up to 5 years of age and their families.
• Ability to work autonomously to engage families, including families for whom traditional clinic based CAMHS services may be inaccessible, by providing an assessment and treatment service within community settings. (Passionate about community working).
• Skills in assessing and understanding the mental health needs of adults and parents of children under 5
• Skills in the assessment of clinical risk and safeguarding concerns.
• Skills in the flexible use of evidence-based intervention
• Ability to form excellent working relationships with colleagues and work flexibly and sensitively with others in multidisciplinary and multi-agency settings
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice
• Knowledge and skills in effective communication, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Skills in effectively managing a clinical caseload, completing outcomes measures routinely, updating clinical records in line with team, service and Trust requirements
• Skills in screening for, assessing and working with children, young people and families with neurodiversity (ADHD and Autism)
• Ability to type own notes on our RIO electronic patient records.

Knowledge and Experience
Essential

• Experience of providing a culturally sensitive therapeutic service to young people and families in the community
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of psychological interventions
• Working knowledge of the theory and practice of at least one specialist psychological therapy
• Experience of working with children and young people presenting with a range of mental health difficulties and challenging behaviour
• Experience of multidisciplinary and multiagency working and co-working assessments and treatment.
• Experience of working clinically in community settings e.g. with children's centres and schools to meet the mental health needs of CYP

Desirable

• Experience of working in early years settings with children under five and their families.
• Knowledge of or training in trauma-informed approaches with children and young people

Personal Qualities
Essential

• Compassion, empathy and warmth demonstrated by cultural sensitivity and humility - a willingness and enthusiasm for working with and learning from colleagues and families from diverse backgrounds
• Reflexivity as a practitioner as demonstrated by a commitment to self reflection, seeking appropriate supervision and support and continued learning
• Flexibility, resilience and emotional awareness in order to manage the demands of working in a busy CAMHS service, maintaining clinical boundaries and managing the demands of the clinical work
• A passion for working with CYP and families and collaborative - a commitment to community, MDT and interagency working

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
Whittington Hospital NHS Trust
Address
Islington Community CAMHS, Northern Health Centre,
580 Holloway Road
London
N7 6LB
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.whittington.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact:
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
Lucy Alexander
lucy.alexander@nhs.net
02033161824

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.
Applicants must have current UK professional registration.