CYPS CAAAS Highly Specialist Speech and Language Therapist

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

·       To independently assess, diagnose, plan and deliver an appropriate therapeutic service to children referred to the designated caseload, and to work in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Gloucestershire Health and Care Services NHS Trust and within the principles of the County’s Early Years and Young People’s Strategy.

·       To work autonomously, taking independent responsibility for the delivery of Speech & Language Therapy to a caseload of children referred to the designated Clinic.

·       To make appropriate clinical decisions following assessment, defining a differential diagnosis on the basis of evidence from formal and dynamic assessments and structuring clear care plans based on best practice.

·       To analyse complex information to enable decision making for case management and to design appropriate intervention from a range of options to meet the needs of children aged 0 -19 referred to the Autism and ADHD service.

·        To work co-operatively with a range of multi-agency staff, adapting practice where necessary to ensure that a timely and effective intervention is delivered to all children.

·       To provide advice, demonstration and training around specific strategies of intervention for the management of the child’s communication difficulty in the following areas; Environmental intervention, Parent/child interaction, modification of linguistic environment, Group intervention and Alternative and augmentative intervention. This is particularly in respect to setting up favourable communicative environments that support the use of signing and symbols/ visual supports.

·       To assist with the training and support of Education practitioners and Teaching Assistants in education settings to enable them to undertake delegated intervention programmes in order to incorporate and integrate provision across the child’s daily curriculum.

·       To contribute to multi-disciplinary clinical teams by discussing own and others input around clients’ needs to ensure a well-coordinated care plan, working closely with clients, carers, families and multi-disciplinary team members – agreeing decision making relative to patient/client management.

·       To contribute to the development of Speech and Language Therapy colleagues, participate in student placements, supervise the work of SLT students, assistants and volunteers and explain the role of SLTs to visitors, volunteers etc.

·       To use negotiation skills to manage any potential areas of conflict in a proactive manner, especially in relation to satisfying the competing demands of an unpredictable and varied workload, working co-operatively and flexibly with all stakeholders.

·       To form productive relationships with carers /parents who may be under stress, in particular when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of their child’s difficulties and implications of this. To communicate complex condition-related information from assessments in such a manner as to inform and positively motivate clients, carers, families and multi-disciplinary team members / other professionals.

·       To demonstrate appropriate skills and techniques to parents and to education staff to maximise the effectiveness of intervention within all settings.

·       To develop collaborative and co-operative working relationships with a range of colleagues and contribute to client/working groups where appropriate.

·       To develop and maintain working relationships with a wide range of other Professionals including Health Visitors, Community Paediatricians, Pre-school CYPD Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators, Advisory Teaching Staff, Educational Psychologists, Social Services colleagues, Head Teachers, teaching and support staff in mainstream schools.