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North London NHS Foundation Trust

About

North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) was created on 1 November 2024. We employ approximately 6,000 staff who serve a diverse population over five the London Boroughs with a combined population of 1.8 million people.

We are rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission, with many of our practice areas judged to be ‘Outstanding’.

Our Trust provides high-quality mental health services within hospital and community settings across Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, and Islington. Our wide range of services include specialist services such as those for children and young people, prison and forensic services, eating disorders services and drug and alcohol recovery.

We employ a diverse workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive anchor employer.

We work closely with our local communities to recruit from different groups, welcoming applications from people who reflect the richness of our communities and populations we serve.

We are proud to support the UK Armed forces community, including members of the Reserve Forces. We also provide apprenticeship and care leaver employment opportunities.

We welcome applications from all groups including Black, Asian or other ethnic minorities, disabled people (whether their disability is visible or not) and people who are LGBTQ+. We have several active staff networks including Disability, LGBTQ+, Race Equality and Cultural Heritage (REACH), Women’s staff networks and many more to bring staff together and celebrate diversity across our whole workforce.

Our trust website is: https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/

Contact

Address: Trust Headquarters St Pancras Hospital; 4 St Pancras Way; London; NW1 0PE
Contact Number: 020 3317 3500

Find out more

Jobs Website

Open

Ref: 455-NLFT-0708 Vacancy ID: 7835481

Psychotherapist

Accepting applications until: 07-Apr-2026 23:59

Vacancy status: Open

Accepting applications until: 07-Apr-2026 23:59

Location

Site: Baytree House
Address: Christchurch Close
Town: Enfield
Postcode: EN2 6NZ
Major / Minor Region: London

Contract type & working pattern

Contract: Permanent: Post Holder will work a 4 day period
Hours: Part time - 30 hours per week

Salary

Salary: £53,751 - £60,651 Per annum including HCAS
Salary period: Yearly
Grade: (Band 7)

Specialty

Main area: Child Psychotherapist

Interview date: 23/04/2026

Thank you for your interest in the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT). This is an exciting time to join us and be part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we:

Collaborate at every level by living our values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
Ensure that research, quality improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do

We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer. We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.

The North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.

Our trust website is: https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/

As a values‑driven Trust, we recruit through our values. Our selection processes focus on behaviours, attitudes, and examples that reflect our organisational values and commitment to compassionate, high‑quality care.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role. We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants. However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey. Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder will offer specialist psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment, brief and longer term.

MAIN TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Clinical:

To provide a Child and Adolescent psychotherapy service to young people and their families referred to the Service for Adolescents and Families in Enfield (SAFE), offering highly specialist psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment to young people with a wide range of presentations and complex needs. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychoanalytically based psychological therapies and interventions for children, young people, their families/carers, adjusting and refining formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a few provisional hypotheses.
To practice using a time sensitive model of psychoanalytic psychotherapy therapy in accordance with relevant evidence base and Trust guidelines
To provide parent/carer work in support of young people in psychotherapy
To help in planning, Organising and running applied psychotherapeutic activities such as psychotherapy groups for adolescents or for parents/carers, short or longer term
To participate in research, CPD and learning activities within the SAFE Child Psychotherapy team and in the wider SAFE multidisciplinary team. The post holder will be able to also develop and pursue their specific areas of interest or service development and research projects, where appropriate, and join our ongoing psychotherapy research and continued professional development work that is running at SAFE.
To offer specialist generic assessments and treatment for young people and their families/carers referred to SAFE, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care
To provide Child Psychotherapy assessments and State of Mind assessments
To liaise with other health, social care, education and voluntary sector staff from a range of agencies in the care provided to patients.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management for young people and their families and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
To offer advice and consultation from a psychodynamic perspective on clients' psychological care to colleagues, professional and non-professional staff in mental health services, Local Authority Social Care and the Education setting.
To work autonomously within professional guidelines and ACP policy, under the supervision of the SAFE Lead Child Psychotherapist, and in collaboration with the Enfield CAMHS Lead Child Psychotherapist, the senior clinicians within SAFE and the SAFE Team Manager
To be informed by evidence-based practice and participate in audit, policy and service developments and research within the area served by Enfield CAMHS.
To formulate and implement plans for the treatment and/or management of young people and their families’ mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the presenting problem(s), and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
To provide clinical supervision to junior colleagues and trainees, if appropriate, dependent on experience.
To participate in the care provision, assessment and planning of young people presenting in crisis as part of the Crisis pathway
To be up to date with both de-escalation, physical breakaway and PMVA techniques appropriate to service guidelines and policies.

Communication

To communicate complex and potentially highly contentious information in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, in situations with children, young people and their families/carers who may be hostile or highly emotional, requiring the highest level of communication skills.
To communicate information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of children and young people in a skilled and sensitive manner in order to promote effective multi-disciplinary working and therapeutic outcomes for clients.
To work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team at SAFE, providing a psychoanalytic lens to assessment and treatment options, as discussed in Team meetings.
To communicate across language and cultural barriers, through appropriate interpreters where necessary, to ensure that highly complex treatments are carried out in a language easily understandable to the service users.
To communicate effectively with service users and parents/carers, recognising the need for alternative methods of communication to overcome different levels of understanding, cultural background and preferred ways of communicating.
To anticipate barriers to communication and take action to improve it, as needed.

Due to the high number of applications that are received for some posts, we reserve the right to close any vacancies before the stated closing date. Therefore, please ensure you apply without delay if you wish to be considered for this role.

In line with NHS protocols, only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview. We regret that it is not possible to contact all applicants for every vacancy. If you have not been contacted within 4 weeks of the closing date, please assume you have not been shortlisted for the next stage.

Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome. Please ensure you hold the correct right to work in the UK at the time of your application. Some roles may not be eligible for sponsorship, and we want to make sure you have all the information you need before applying. To avoid disappointment please check that you are eligible under the UKVI guidelines: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-visas-and-immigration

References will be required to cover your last 3 years of employment/training. One has to be from your current or most recent employer and the others from your previous employer. The references should be from persons with management responsibility or HR.

Please note, in order to progress your application your data will be processed by our 3rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of North London NHS Foundation Trust. As part of pre-employment checks your identity and right to work documentation will be verified remotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk

The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.

We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating an inclusive, fair, and supportive workplace for all. We actively welcome applications from individuals who are under‑represented within our workforce and are dedicated to eliminating discrimination in all its forms.

As a Disability Confident (Two Ticks) employer, we guarantee an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role and are committed to making reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process.

By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at improving efficiencies within the NHS both to make costs savings for NHS organisations but also to save you time when your employment transfers.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Person specification

Education and Qualification

Essential criteria

Recognised postgraduate level training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy conferring eligibility for full membership of the Association of Child Psychotherapists.
Professionally registered with the Association of Child Psychotherapists

Desirable criteria

Evidence of relevant continuing professional development.
Additional therapeutic training

Experience & Knowledge

Essential criteria

Experience of providing psychoanalytic therapies to children, young people and their families with a wide range of complexity and mental health problems
Experience of delivering specialist psychoanalytic psychotherapy (assessment, formulation and treatment) maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
Competence in applying child psychotherapy to complex difficulties and a proven track record of delivering positive outcomes in therapy

Desirable criteria

Experience of Short-Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (STPP) and other NICE approved therapeutic interventions
Experience and knowledge of working in inpatient adolescent services or liaising closely with them
Experience of working with young people suffering from psychosis, or at risk of developing psychosis.

Skills & Abilities

Essential criteria

Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
Well-developed oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS

Desirable criteria

Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies with children, young people and families
Understanding of the need and rationale for using evidence based psychological therapies Ability to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with patients and indirectly via supervision of other staff