Highly Specialist Therapist - Children and Families Service

Highly Specialist Therapist
- Children and Families Service

LB OF HACKNEY

Highly Specialist Therapist
- Children and Families Service

Job Number: HCAA
03100

Agreement Type: Permanent

Work Pattern: Full Time

Contracted

Hours:

36

Hackney is seeking an expert practitioner and dynamic leader to step into the role of
Highly Specialist Therapist
within our newly redesigned in-house Mental Health Service. Holding a pivotal clinical leadership post, you will navigate the complex intersection of Children’s Social Care and Mental Health services to ensure Hackney’s most vulnerable children receive timely, trauma-informed, and evidence-based psychological support.

In this role, you will provide high-level clinical support, formulation, governance, and supervision to a dedicated team of clinicians (including Specialist Therapists, YJS practitioners, and trainees). Beyond direct clinical delivery, you will act as a strategic bridge—delivering "expert-to-expert" consultation to Social Work Managers, navigating complex CAMHS and AMHS pathways, and designing workforce wellbeing frameworks to support staff resilience.

Our Practice Framework:
The STAR Model

Hackney is on an ambitious journey to embed a
Systemic, Trauma-informed, and Anti-Racist (STAR)practice model. We are deeply committed to anti-oppressive practice, actively centering the lived experiences of families and clinicians with marginalised identities. Our STAR framework ensures a sharp focus on ethnicity and race, while deeply attending to the intersections of sexuality, faith, neurodiversity, and other protected characteristics. As a Highly Specialist Therapist, you will act as a key champion in driving this cultural change and clinical excellence across the Directorate.

• Clinical Leadership: Hold a clinical caseload of children presenting with highly complex needs including looked after children, care leavers and young people within the youth justice system. Oversee service referral pathways, clinical flow, and deliver advanced formulations that directly support social work decision-making.
• Specialist Supervision & Governance: Provide formal clinical supervision and professional governance to Specialist Therapists and clinicians across Youth Justice, Edge of Care, and Children’s Homes teams.
• Strategic Liaison & CAMHS Interface: Lead the CAMHS Liaison function, acting as the primary clinical interface with NHS statutory health providers to manage complex care pathways and ensure no child falls between the gaps.
• Systemic Consultation & Reflective Spaces: Deliver specialist consultation to social work managers to help stabilise high-risk placements. Design and facilitate reflective practice groups using a vicarious trauma lens following critical or near-critical incidents.
• Anti-Racist Practice Champion: Drive the delivery of STAR methodologies in all aspects of clinical practice, ensuring models are culturally sensitive and actively challenge systemic inequalities.

We are looking for an expert, registered clinician (e.g., UKCP, HCPC, AFT, ACP, or equivalent) with significant post-qualification experience in specialist mental health settings. You will bring:

• Post-graduate clinical qualification and a recognised qualification/training in Clinical Supervision.
• Expertise in working autonomously with complex trauma, attachment issues, and high-stakes clinical risk (e.g., self-harm, safeguarding, CSA, or Harmful Sexual Behaviour).
• Proven experience in providing formal clinical supervision and leading workforce reflective spaces.
• Strong collaborative skills to navigate agency boundaries, liaise with statutory health services, and advocate for children in care.
• A profound, demonstrable commitment to anti-racist, systemic, and anti-oppressive ways of working.

An Enhanced DBS check is required for this role.

In return for your expertise and dedication, Hackney offers a supportive, collaborative environment committed to your professional growth. We provide robust systemic support, including external clinical supervision for different therapeutic modalities as required, alongside excellent local authority benefits.

As a Council, our most…