Clinical Lead

Job summary
Are you looking for a new and rewarding opportunity to progress your career in Children and Young People's Mental Health Services? If so, Barnsley CAMHS Crisis and Intensive Home-Based Treatment Team is seeking to recruit a Clinical Lead to join our fantastic team.

The successful candidate will provide strong clinical leadership, offering supervision, guidance and support to staff across the team. You will be an effective and compassionate leader, working closely alongside the Team Manager, Consultant Psychiatrist and wider leadership team. You will also play a key role in the ongoing development of the service, contributing to monitoring, audit and quality improvement initiatives to ensure the highest standards of care.

Our team provides crisis support to young people experiencing significant mental health difficulties and emotional distress. We also offer intensive home-based treatment and extended crisis support to young people who may be at risk of hospital admission. This is a rewarding and fast-paced service, and the successful candidate will be organised, motivated and committed to delivering high-quality assessments, formulations and interventions for the young people we support.

Staff wellbeing is at the heart of Barnsley CAMHS, and our recent staff survey results reflect this commitment. You will be supported to thrive in your role, with access to regular managerial and clinical supervision, alongside opportunities for ongoing professional development.

Main duties of the job
You will provide clinical expertise to the team and support children, young people and families experiencing a mental health crisis. You will also:

• Have a strong interest in developing the clinical skills of staff within our CAMHS Crisis and Intensive Home-Based Treatment Team.
• Have extensive experience working in CAMHS services.
• Have experience managing complex caseloads, undertaking assessments, delivering treatment and effectively managing risk.
• Have significant experience working with clinicians to achieve service improvement.
• Confidently lead and co-ordinate shifts, support junior staff and make sound clinical decisions to reduce and manage risk for young people, families, colleagues and the organisation.

Barnsley CAMHS Crisis and Intensive Home-Based Treatment Team provides a 7-day service to young people and their families. If you have a passion for working with children and young people and are committed to multidisciplinary working, we would like to hear from you. The successful applicant will work an agreed shift pattern across the Barnsley locality. Based centrally in Barnsley, we function as a locality team. We are seeking a caring, compassionate, energetic and motivated clinician who is passionate about improving the lives and mental health of young people.

At the time of advertising, this role does meet the minimum requirements set by UK Visas and Immigration to sponsor candidates to work in the UK. We look forward to receiving your application.

About us
We are a specialist NHS Foundation Trust that provides community, mental health and learning disability services for the people of Barnsley, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield. We also provide low and medium secure services and are the lead for the west Yorkshire secure provider collaborative.

Our mission is to help people reach their potential and live well in their communities, we do this by providing high-quality care in the right place at the right time. We employ staff in both clinical and non-clinical services who work hard to make a difference to the lives of service users, families and carers.

We encourage and welcome applications from all protected characteristic groups, we value diversity and want our workforce to be reflective of our communities.

Being a foundation Trust means we are accountable to our members, who can have a say in how we are run. Around 14,300 local people (including staff) are members of our Trust.

Join us and you will be one of over 4,500 staff committed to supporting and improving the mental, physical and social needs of the thousands of people we meet and help each year.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all colleagues and volunteers to share this commitment.

We do reserve the right to close vacancy before the advertised closing date if necessary, so please apply as soon as possible.

Details
Date posted: 21 October 2026
Pay scheme: Agenda for change
Band: Band 7
Salary: £49,387 to £56,515 a year
Contract: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time, Flexible working
Reference number: C9378-B2389
Job location: New Street Health Centre, Upper New Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire, S70 1LP, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities
JOB SUMMARY
This job description is an outline of the main duties of the post. The post-holder will be required to undertake other duties commensurate with the grade as directed.

The content of this post will be reviewed in consultation with the post-holder when necessary and in line with the service developments.

To provide highly specialist skills and expertise, facilitating interventions of the highest quality in the field of mental health, including emergency assessments and intensive interventions with children, young people and their families.

To work autonomously and collaboratively within the MDT, providing consultation and teaching for other agencies/professionals.

To provide supervision and teaching to all other disciplines within CAMHS and to deputise as agreed for the team leader.

To promote safeguarding and the welfare of children and young people.

KEY RESULT AREAS
CLINICAL

• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility in accordance with the Trust Policies and procedures.
• The post-holder will have highly developed skills in assessing the needs of children and their carers based on the analysis of highly complex facts and situations. Interventions will be planned based on the assessment information and interpretation of this. The clinical assessment will include gathering appropriate historical information from the child and family, allied to clinical observation of family relationships and mental state of the child and other family members, and obtaining relevant information from other agencies. Offering highly specialist expertise in child and adolescent mental health, ensuring clear documentation in all appropriate case notes and sharing assessments and information with the family and all relevant professionals.
• To undertake highly specialist initial assessments of young people following acts of serious self-harm and attempted suicide in line with evidence based practice.
• To undertake highly specialised risk assessments following referral for presentations requiring urgent mental health or psychiatric assessment and plan relevant interventions.
• To implement intensive interventions with young people and their families, as relevant to the post-holder's main clinical role, i.e. group and individual work, systemic family interventions. This will include analysis, interpretation and evaluation to reformulate plans of care.
• The post-holder will provide therapeutic care to emotionally demanding clients in highly emotive situations.
• The post-holder will develop and maintain therapeutic relationships with children and carers. This will include cases of high complexity which require more specialised levels of assessment and therapeutic skills.
• As part of multi-disciplinary team, the Senior Mental Health Practitioner will deliver and devise complex packages of care. Provide individual and family review/follow-up sessions to children, young people or their carers.
• To take a lead role in setting guidelines and standards that will ensure all young persons identified with complex problems are discharged from Specialist CAMHS with an appropriate package of care from universal services.
• The post-holder will have skills to communicate highly complex information regarding personal psycho-social problems in an empathic and supportive way using the highest level of interpersonal skills in situations which can be highly emotional and sometimes antagonistic. Service users and families may have difficulty or be reluctant to understand what is communicated to them.
• Communicate complex, sensitive or contentious information utilising highly developed interpersonal skills. Take into account issues of confidentiality and the consent of Adults and Young People. Considering and assessing a child's maturity to consent.
• To work with children, young people (0-18) and their families, liaising with external agencies, e.g. Education, Social Services and Paediatric Services. Presenting problems are frequently complex and require that sophisticated packages of care are negotiated and delivered. To actively promote user/carer involvement in all aspects of care planning/delivery whilst respecting the rights, capabilities and wishes of the individuals concerned.
• To apply a sound knowledge of safeguarding children and guidelines in clinical work.
• To deputise for the team leader in his/her absence.
• Apply Trust policies and procedures in instances of aggression, acute distress and disturbed mental health presentations.

HUMAN RESOURCES

• The Senior Mental Health Practitioner will take the responsibility in developing, managing and coordinating the supervision systems for the team.
• The post-holder will support other team members in managing cases, providing joint working where appropriate on specific therapeutic techniques.
• To manage and coordinate rotas for all disciplines within CAMHS specific to their own area of specialism.
• To support the Clinical Governance Lead within the service and participate in the development and maintenance of governance processes, i.e. clinical incident reporting, risk management.
• Contribute to the induction of new starters in the service.
• Responsible for first line resolution of complaints in line with Trust policy.
• Responsible for budgetary requirement of equipment necessary for clinical interventions.

RESEARCH

• The post-holder will identify and undertake R and D activity, where appropriate, and be responsible for regular audit projects/service evaluations and for the development of research projects in line with evidence based practice.
• To participate and take a lead role in audit, service evaluation and quality management initiative.
• The post-holder will deliver and supervise others to participate in audit pertaining to their specialist area ensuring agreed results are implemented.
• To utilise theory, evidence based literature and research to support evidence based practice in work with client and that of the service planning, development and delivers. To maintain links with academic institutions.
• To introduce, through consultation with colleagues, quality initiatives.
• To be committed to a quality approach for patient care.

POLICY AND SERVICE DEVELOPMENT

• To lead on service developments and to provide information and data for other proposals as required. Promote and lead patient and public involvement strategies within the clinical environment.
• To deputise in the team leader's absence at service business meetings within CAMHS and relevant departments within Children's Services.
• To identify training and development needs for the continued provision of an effective service.
• To address the clinical governance agenda (e.g. clinical effectiveness, education and training, communication, audit, risk management) as appropriate. This includes active involvement in one or more of the multidisciplinary clinical improvement groups in CAMHS.
• Contribute to and change practice in response to corporate developments.

For full details of the role please see the supporting documents attached.

All employees of the Trust are strongly encouraged to have their up-to-date flu vaccination to protect staff and patients.

We are aware that an increasing number of applicants are using AI technology to generate responses on NHS Job application forms. We strongly discourage this and will conduct a thorough screening process before selecting candidates to progress to the next stage. If you are using AI to enhance your application, please disclose this in your NHS Jobs application form.

Person Specification
Qualifications (Essential)

• Nursing qualification.
• Post qualification training in identified portfolio, e.g. LD, LAC, eating disorder.
• A teaching and assessing qualification.
• Membership of professional body - NMC.

Qualifications (Desirable)

• Post graduate qualification in mental health (e.g. CBT, Family Therapy, Counselling).
• Masters Level qualification.
• Formal management/supervisory qualification.

Personal Attributes (Essential)

• Able to work autonomously and as part of a team.
• Commitment to multi-agency approach/working.
• Ability to work and make decisions under pressure.
• Calm, confident, innovative, creative and assertive.
• Ability to make and lead decisions under pressure/crisis situations.
• Willingness to be flexible and adaptable in accordance with changing service priorities.
• Commitment to challenging discrimination and improving accessibility of services.
• Ability to cope calmly in a crisis.
• To demonstrate good self-care and encourage the same in team members.
• A current driving licence and access to a car during the working day is essential (reasonable adjustments will be considered for any applicants who are unable to drive due to a disability).
• To have integrity, be honest, open, transparent and respectful.

Special Knowledge/Skills (Essential)

• Excellent verbal and communication skills.
• Ability to manage own caseload and to be a self-reliant and autonomous practitioner.
• Excellent negotiation skills, and problem solving skills.
• Customer service orientation.
• Excellent record keeping and report writing skills to include care planning and risk assessments.
• IT skills.

Experience (Essential)

• Experience of delivering training to others.
• Extensive experience in identified portfolio requirements.
• Substantial post qualification experience, some of which must be working with Children, young people and their carers in a mental health or other complex care setting.
• Experience of working in different cultural contexts.
• Knowledge and experience of working with Equality and Diversity.
• Multidisciplinary team working.
• Inter-agency liaison and consultation.
• Experience of providing highly specialist advice and supervision to other professionals.
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and guidance for working with children, young people, mental health and safeguarding.
• Evidence of advanced clinical/therapeutic knowledge and skills in mental health.
• Extensive experience in assessment and risk management and ability to implement evidence based practice.
• Advanced experience of safeguarding children and young people.

Experience (Desirable)

• Experience of community settings.

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.

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: South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Trust
Address: New Street Health Centre, Upper New Street, Barnsley, S Yorkshire, S70 1LP, United Kingdom
Employer's website: https://www.southwestyorkshire.nhs.uk

Employer contact details
For questions about the job, contact: Samantha Thompson, samantha.thompson@swyt.nhs.uk, 01226644829