Systemic and Family Therapist, Band 8a – Community Adult Mental Health: Sponsorship Available

Job summary

This is an exciting time to join NLFT with the opportunity as a Senior Systemic and Family Psychotherapist to work with service users, their families and networks across Haringey’s Psychological Therapies Pathways, Community Core Teams and Complex Emotional Needs Teams.

You will join a community of Systemic Family Psychotherapists working across Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, Camden, Islington and the Tavistock. We take pride in developing our CPD and training opportunities available locally and more widely, and alongside, regular supervision and support is provided.

With psychologists, psychological therapists and multi-disciplinary staff within the Core Community Teams, you will provide psychological/systemic input to the care of those requiring the highest level of support from mental health services. You will collaborate across different service, pathway and team contexts and develop a system of engagement that promotes a trauma informed, strength based focussed offer and treatment that can form the foundation for the sustainable recovery of service users, their family and carer networks.

Psychological/systemic assessments, consultation and direct work with the team and pathways regarding clients with complex presentations are provided, many of whom present with high risk and may be difficult to engage. You will be expected to provide training, supervision and consultation to other professional and non-professional disciplines, including trainees.

Main duties of the job

• Provision of psychological and systemic therapies covered by NICE guidelines to individuals, families, networks.

o Highly specialist assessment of service users and their families.

o Delivery with other members of the team to assist engagement, evaluation and assessment of service users, their family/ professional and social network system.

o Systemic intervention & consultation to multi-disciplinary clinical meetings.

o Structured internal supervision and consultation, including trainees and reflective practice.

o Work autonomously within professional guidelines and the framework of the service’s policies and procedures.

o Provide teaching, training and consultation to mental health service staff.

o Use of core professional training e.g. to undertake research, audit and contribution to policy and service development.

You will be working with a client group with severe and enduring mental illness across the whole life span of community adult mental health including Complex Emotional Needs (c-PTSD; PD and MAP pathways); non-psychotic and psychotic presentations and psychological therapy pathways.

Person Specification

Training and Qualification

Essential

• Core Mental Health Qualification (Social Work, Nursing, Occupation Therapy, Allied Health Professions (drama, art, music therapy etc), Clinical/Counselling Psychology
• And/or Equivalent training and experience in related mental health field e.g. experience of minimum of 3 years
• Doctoral or Master level qualification in Systemic Psychotherapy
• Registered with UKCP/AFSP as a Systemic and Family Psychotherapist

Desirable

• Post Qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields and modalities of applied psychology/systemic therapy
• Accredited (AFSP/UKCP) as Systemic and Family Therapy Supervisor

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist systemic and psychologically informed assessment and direct clinical work with service users across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings
• Experience of working with a wide variety of service user groups, which might include CAMHS and Adult mental health settings throughout the whole life course – and with presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.e
• Maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of working with psychosis, non-psychosis presentations and a range of severe and enduring mental health problems presented within a secondary adult mental health NHS setting.
• Experience of working in the NHS.
• Experience of working within a multi-disciplinary team context including across different pathways and team settings.
• Completion of a minimum of two years post qualification experience as systemic and family therapist with the related service user group.
• Experience of provision of clinical and systemic supervision to family therapy and clinical psychology trainees and assistant psychologists.

Desirable

• Experience of systemic research design and methodology, data analysis and collation (e.g. SCORE 15 and/or other related outcome measures)
• Experience and delivery including co-ordination of Family Therapy Clinic.
• Experience of systemic supervision with family therapy trainees completing qualifying masters-level training.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of systemic and family therapy/psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Knowledge of theory, practice and techniques of a range of specialised systemic and family psychotherapeutic models including evidence-based practise and its application with adults with severe and enduring mental health presentations.
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside of the NHS.
• Skills in providing specialist systemic consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level and/or that equivalent to MSc in Systemic and Family Psychotherapy level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practised within the clinical fields of systemic practise research and psychology research.
• Ability to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with patients and indirectly via supervision, training and consultation with other staff.
• Knowledge of relevant legislation in relation to the service user group and mental health.

Desirable

• High level knowledge of theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of theory and practise of a range of different therapeutic models within psychological therapies-specifically difficult to treat groups (e.g. psychosis, eating disorders, substance misuse, personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional needs including neurodivergent presentations and/or disabilities)

Other

Essential

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

Desirable

• Personal experience of mental health problems.
• Ability to support MDT members in the provision of psychologically and systemically driven interventions.
• Evidence of service development and/or related project, its contribution and impact to the wider service and to systemic and family therapy.
• Ability and willingness to supervise clinical psychology and family therapy trainees within a Family Therapy Clinic context.

Closing Date: 5 October 2026