Family Functional Therapist

Job Description

Organisation: London Borough of Waltham Forest

Grade: PO5£50,574 - £53,607
Contract Type: Full time/Permanent
Working hours per week: 36

Application Deadline: 06/08/202

Proposed Interview Date(s): TBC
Reference: 1812

About Us:

Bursting with culture, energy, and opportunity, the London Borough of Waltham Forest is a fantastic and exciting place to work.

We are a highly ambitious borough. Driven by culture and the innate creativity of our residents, we have developed new and innovative ways to build our communities. Our Council is relentlessly resident-focused, insight-led, digitally driven and commercially minded; a Council focused on meeting the needs of our existing and future residents.

London Borough of Waltham Forest is one of the Mayor of London’s Good Work Standard employers. This accreditation is a proof of our commitment to creating a healthy, fair and inclusive workplace. This includes fair pay and conditions, workplace well-being, skills and progression and diversity and recruitment.

About the role:

As an FFT Therapist, the role involves delivering specialised Functional Family Therapy to children and families experiencing complex relational and behavioural challenges. Therapists work across developmental stages and diverse family structures, offering interventions within a multi-disciplinary framework. Central to the role is maintaining a caseload of families, where the therapist draws on advanced assessment skills and systemic formulation to guide evidence-based interventions. These interventions are delivered in accordance with the FFT Standard or FFT Child Welfare model, under the guidance of an FFT Supervisor and National Consultant, and always grounded in a strengths-based, collaborative methodology.

FFT Therapists are required to work closely with professionals from a range of sectors including Education, Social Care, Health, and the voluntary sector, sharing complex and often sensitive information in a way that supports the child and family’s needs. In doing so, therapists uphold responsibilities relating to safeguarding, criminal justice, and statutory guidance, and contribute written and verbal reports, both standard and non-standard, as needed. Participation in regular FFT audits and routine collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative outcome data is also essential to demonstrate clinical effectiveness and inform service development.

The role demands a commitment to equity and cultural competence, ensuring practice is respectful and attuned to the needs of families from varied racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds. FFT Therapists must advocate for the FFT model and the value of relational interventions within internal teams and across external networks, representing the service at multi-agency forums both locally and regionally. Additionally, the role includes a strong focus on clinical and social care governance, ensuring adherence to health and safety legislation, equal opportunities policies, and all relevant Council procedures

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Experience

• Substantial (3 years+) post qualifying experience (Social Work, Occupational Health and Nursing) with children and families in a relevant setting
• Minimum five years’ experience of working with children and/or adolescents with complex emotional and behavioural problems and their families.
• Experience of specialist systemic assessment, formulation and intervention with children, young people and families in either community, primary care, CAMHS or inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems, heightened emotions with a wide variety of client groups across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
• Experience of working in a (multidisciplinary) team.
• Experience of working with a range of childhood disorders at the acute and chronic stage.
• Experience of self-harm assessment and intervention with both individuals and their families.
• Experience of risk assessment, risk management and safety planning.
• Intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration. This requires the use of highly developed analytical and judgement skills, where there are a range of options.
• Ability to work in community and family settings, managing the highly complex emotional relationships within and between the component parts of the family and how it interacts with the professional system in ways which maximise the potential for therapeutic outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Ability to work with families who are experiencing high levels of stress.
• Ability to apply a clinical model of systemic theory and intervention and the ability to achieve adherence to a clinical model.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing.
• Ability to act upon consultation and feedback.
• Ability to develop pragmatic and goal specific measurable steps that can be set out for children and their families.
• Ability to multi-task and manage competing demands; planning and organising skills for caseload management.
• Demonstrate clear and effective verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present complex information in an understandable way.
• Demonstrate a commitment to anti-oppressive practice and working within a multi-cultural framework.
• Demonstrate a sound working knowledge of legislation and guidance in relation to child protection.
• Demonstrable experience of working within a multi-agency environment
• Demonstrate a sound working knowledge of whole family practice.
• Demonstrate a sound working knowledge of best practice in working with families.
• Demonstrate a sound working knowledge of the skills and strategies required to assess and intervene with complex families.
• Ability, enthusiasm and commitment to working with professionals from a range of backgrounds.
• Ability to effectively chair meetings and follow up agreed actions.
• Demonstrate the ability to plan and make effective decisions being aware of their implications.
• Demonstrate a willingness to undertake appropriate training and development.
• Skills in self-management, including time management.
• Ability to identify and employ as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms, including regular supervision for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Skill to present progress of the FFT Standard/Child Welfare work and formulations of relational problems in multi-disciplinary settings.

Qualifications and Requirements:

Knowledge

• A professional qualification in Social Work, Occupational Health or Nursing.

or

• Qualification as a Systemic Practitioner or Psychotherapist at a Post Graduate level.

or

• A Masters level degree in a relevant discipline e.g. Family Therapy, Forensic Psychology, Clinical or Applied Psychology.

Substantial demonstrable work experience of working with young people and families.

Professional registration with a national registrant body.

• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group (adolescents with conduct disorder, and offending behaviour; social care) and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group.

Terms and conditions:

The below terms and conditions apply to this role:

Satisfactory employment references and CIFAS identity checks;

Satisfactory declaration of interest;

This role is subject to safer recruitment practices as it involves work with children and/ or vulnerable adults;

Satisfactory DBS check;

Continued professional body registration;

As a public authority, we must ensure that members of staff in public-facing roles are able to speak fluent English. This means that they must have a command of spoken English, with confidence and accuracy, sufficient for the effective performance of their role. This requirement does not refer to any particular English language qualifications, regional or international accents, dialects, speech impediments or the tone of conversations. It does not require staff to speak only in English.

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are invited to submit their applications online by pressing the ‘Apply’ button below. This includes a supporting statement that outlines to us how your skills and experience make you a good candidate for this vacancy.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Waltham Forest is a diverse borough where diversity is valued and is integral to both, service delivery and employment of its staff. The Council is proud of its rich mix of communities and as the largest employer in the area, it works hard to respond to the changing needs of its population. We use our statutory duties on race, gender and disability equality and best practice in respect of age, faith and sexual orientation to ensure equality of opportunity in the workplace. The Council is committed to meeting its 4 equality objectives: - Promoting equality of opportunity - Opposing all forms of discrimination, intolerance and disadvantage - Ensuring our workforce reflects the diverse communities of Waltham Forest at all levels. - Providing fair, appropriate, accessible and excellent Services to all. Respecting Diversity is a core Council value.

To support the above and reduce the risk of bias in its recruitment activities, the council is operating an anonymous shortlisting process, which hides personal information that can identify individuals until their application has been considered for shortlisting. The council also operates a scheme whereby, for jobs graded up to and including scale SO2, internal candidates are considered first. This includes those candidates who self-identify as having a disability for the purposes of the Disability Confident scheme. For more information, please refer to our recruitment and selection policy.

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below or feel free to discuss this during your interview.

For more information on the benefits of working for the Council, please visit https://www.walthamforest.gov.uk/jobs-and-training/find-jobs-and-other-opportunities/working-us.

Contact Information:

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact Anne McPherson at Anne.McPherson@walthamforest.gov.uk

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post, please contact our Recruitment Team via email at recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk.

The Council’s preference is for online application. However, if you have a disability and are unable to complete an online application, please email recruitment@walthamforest.gov.uk so we can arrange an alternative application method.

Click here for further information on the Human Resources recruitment privacy notice.