Principal Clinical Psychologist - Clinical Lead ATTACH Team

Note: Please apply directly through the West Sussex County Councilwebsite. Link below in "Supporting Links"

Salary Pro-rata 55,640to 59,129 per annum

FTEEquivalent Salary Hay D 69,551 to 73,912 per annum.

Contract Type Permanent

Working Pattern Part-time, 29.6 hours per week. Hybrid workingconsidered; in-person availability on a Tuesday necessary for team meeting

Location Based at Glebelands, Shoreham, with countywide coverage

Pleasenote WSCC offer a Relocation Allowance for this role - If yourelocate for a role with us then we can offer a tax-free relocation allowanceof up to £8,000.

Interviews Scheduledfor 06 and 08 October 2025

Make aReal Difference to the Lives of Children in Care

Are you atrauma-informed practitioner, passionate about improving outcomes for childrenand young people in care?

Are youlooking for a leadership opportunity in a growing, DDP-informed therapeuticservice?

Do youthrive in providing training, consultation and reflective practice to staffgroups within Children's Services?

Do youhave experience of providing a range of therapeutic evidence-informedinterventions including DDP-informed interventions with carers and children incare?

Main duties of the job

As Clinical Lead you will:

• Provide clinical oversight and day-to-day leadership of the Attach team
• Deliver specialist psychological consultation, reflective practice groups, and training to social care teams
• Offer direct psychotherapeutic interventions to some children and their carers in fostering, kinship and residential settings
• Clinically supervise psychology colleagues and mentor more junior staff, including assistants and trainee placements
• Collate and contribute to data reporting for the wider Psychological Hub, influencing developments in strategic service innovations
• Contribute to the development of the service

About us

The Attach Service delivers psychological support intoour Children We Care For, Care Leavers, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking andSpecial Guardianship teams and includes support to our Residential andFostering services and into our two specialist projects.

The Attach team delivers a range of evidence-informedsupport to children in care and the professionals and carers around them,helping them understand and respond to the impact of developmental trauma,disrupted attachment, and hidden emotional needs. Within West Sussex Fostering,there is a drive and vision to deliver therapeutic parenting within foster careand kinship, underpinned by DDP principles and an attitude of PACE. Please seethe West Sussex Fostering Vision Statement document for further details of thePACE culture ambition in the Information Pack.

Note:Please apply directly through the West Sussex County Council website. Link below in "Supporting Links"

Job responsibilities

Following the successful TUPE transfer of our specialist psychological services into West Sussex County Council last year, we are embarking on an exciting journey to realign and integrate a range of specialist social care and psychological interventions under one roof in our Psychological Hub. This transformation offers a unique opportunity to innovate and deliver creative, impactful services while building on established, collaborative relationships between psychological services and the social care workforce. We have a wide range and depth of expertise and experience within the services and a strong ethos of working together to meet the needs of these vulnerable groups of children and families.

The Psychological Hub is led by two Consultant Clinical Psychologists, leading in either The Community Psychological Service or The Children We Care For Therapeutic Service.

The Community Psychological Service - provides a range of specialist psychological assessments and therapeutic interventions with children, young people and their families or carers where concerns have been raised about the child engaging in harmful sexual behaviour. In addition to direct work, the service provides consultation, training and reflective practice groups to the wider local authority safeguarding and edge of care teams as well as consultation to multi- agency networks.

The Children We Care for Therapeutic Service (the ATTACH service) delivers psychological support into our Children We Care for, Care Leavers, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking young people and Special Guardianship teams and includes support to our Residential and Fostering services.

As a therapeutic team, ATTACH offers consultation and a reflective space for social workers to consider the impact of developmental trauma on children and young peoples emotional well-being. We focus on co-constructing a shared understanding (formulation) with colleagues and carers, to help understand complex presentations and hidden emotional needs. This in turn helps us to develop collaborative approaches and interventions that support children to recover from the impact of early relational trauma and to form meaningful attachments.

We provide consultation and support to carers in the provision of therapeutic parenting approaches, and to social workers in undertaking relationship-based social work, as well as addressing the impact of this work on both groups.

Alongside this, we offer direct assessment and therapeutic work for children and young people in foster care and special guardianship families and for children living within West Sussex residential care homes.

As the Principal Clinical Psychologists for our services, you will:

Provide leadership in delivering evidence-informed, integrative, and systemic interventions.

Work closely within a multi-disciplinary/multiagency environment to design and implement innovative service models.

Champion a compassionate, trauma-aware, relational approach at all levels of the system.

Help shape the future of our Psychological Services Hub, contributing to its growth and impact.

• experience of working with children who are placed in the care of the local authority, and/or those placed with special guardians. This will include a detailed understanding of the needs of children who present with issues arising from developmental trauma and the support needs of those who care for them in foster, special guardianship, and residential placements.

Alongside this a detailed understanding of the intersections of developmental trauma with neurodiversity and other psychological/emotional needs will be essential.

Person Specification

Experience

• 1. Post-qualification training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• 2. Significant experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist with children, young people, and their families.
• 3. Clinical expertise in delivering psychological assessment and therapy with children and young people presenting with a range of complex psychological problems and who may be mistrustful of services, alongside support to their families and other care providers.
• 4. Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group.
• 5. Experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist taking full clinical responsibility for your own practice, including significant post qualification experience working with Children and families with complex needs using complex methods of psychological assessment, psychological formulation, and delivering psychological therapy to children and young people.
• 6. Evidence of continuing professional development.
• 7. Experience of identifying and addressing barriers to inclusion and of challenging oppressive or disrespectful practices.

Experience

• 1. Service development skills, such as leading on delivery of one aspect of a service or of project development within a service, based on evidence-based and evidence-informed practice.
• 2. Skills in supporting staff and teams through clinical supervision and job planning.
• 3. Ability to communicate effectively, presenting information that is accessible, engaging, and accurate.
• 4. Skills in providing consultation to other professional groups, and in supervising others to deliver effective consultations and a range of psychologically informed interventions.
• 5. Skills in designing and delivering accessible and engaging psychological training to different audiences, to inform and improve the practice across services.
• 6. Ability to provide appropriate support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• 7. Governance and audit skills and the interest and ability to present a wide range of data and information in accessible formats.

Qualifications

• Professional Doctorate level training in Clinical Psychology, including highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological practice, lifespan developmental psychology, clinical psychometrics, and neuropsychology.

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.