Principal Clinical Psychologist Children in Care

Salary: £53,915 to £57,296 per annum (29.6 hours/week, pro rata)
FTE Equivalent: £67,394 to £71,620 per annum
Contract Type: Permanent
Working Pattern: Part-time - 29.6 hours per week (Monday to Friday)
Location: Based at Glebelands, Shoreham with countywide coverage - Hybrid working considered (minimum 1 day/week WFH)

• Are you a trauma-informed experienced Clinical Psychologist passionate about supporting children and young people in care across West Sussex?
• Do you thrive in providing training and consultation to diverse staff groups, service development and clinical leadership?
• Do you have experience of building relationships with teams working in children's residential care or specialist therapeutic fostering?

• Do you have experience of service development or leading a project within a service?

If so, we want to hear from you.

Following the transfer of our specialist psychological services into West Sussex County Council, we are at an exciting point of the process, integrating a range of specialist social care and psychology -led services under one roof in our Psychological Hub. Our vision is to deliver creative and impactful services whilst building upon established, collaborative relationships between the social care workforce and psychological services.

We are looking to recruit a dedicated and experienced Principal Clinical Psychologist - Projects Lead to join our growing ATTACH Service (previously CAMHS Permanency). You will play a key role within our Psychological Hub, where innovative, trauma-informed, and collaborative care is at the heart of what we do.

About the Role

This is a newly created and exciting opportunity within our specialist psychologically informed children's social care services. You'll play a vital role in offering clinical oversight, supervision and complex assessment and intervention of children and young people within two key projects being delivered for children we care for:

1. REACH - a specialist fostering model delivered by a dedicated multi-disciplinary team supporting a small number of children stepping down from residential care into foster homes and helping support placement stability through therapeutic parenting support and interventions. (For more information see linked attachment about REACH.)
2. The Children's Residential Home Collaborative (CHC) - an innovative partnership between the County Council and local providers of residential and semi-independent care providing an increasing number of small residential homes within West Sussex. Whilst the homes remain within the independent sector, the Local Authority supports the staff teams around the young person by providing a comprehensive offer of support to help sustain stable placements for young people, close to their community and key attachment relationships.

This initiative has born out of the national challenge to address the lack of placement sufficiency for many vulnerable and complex children we care for, who too frequently have needed to be placed in residential placements in other parts of the country, at high emotional cost to the young person and high financial cost to the public purse; and where long-term stability and wellbeing outcomes for young people, have often been poor. (For more information see linked attachment about CHC).

Key responsibilities include:

• Clinical oversight, project delivery and service development
• Providing specialist consultation, reflective practice, and bespoke training to social care and residential teams
• Offering direct psychological input to children and young people in residential care
• Supervising clinical psychologists and contributing to the wider ATTACH service vision

You'll work within a multi-disciplinary team including clinical psychologists, child psychotherapists, mental health specialists, and assistant psychologists.

About You

You are a compassionate, confident practitioner who:

• Holds HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist
• Has significant experience working with children who are looked after, adopted, or under special guardianship
• Demonstrates strong leadership skills and experience in service or project development
• Has a deep understanding of developmental trauma, attachment, and the impact of early adversity on emotional and neurodevelopmental outcomes
• Is confident providing supervision, risk management, and reflective spaces for multidisciplinary teams
• You'll also need to be an excellent communicator, with the ability to deliver psychologically informed training and contribute to the strategic service direction.

For key skills and experience/knowledge required for this position, please refer to the job description attached.

What We Offer

• A supportive and forward-thinking team culture
• Hybrid working options to promote work-life balance
• Opportunity to shape and lead service innovations within Psychological Hub in West Sussex Children's Services
• Line management and clinical supervision by the Consultant Clinical Psychologist for ATTACH service
• Ongoing professional development and clinical supervision

About Us

The Psychological Hub is clinically led by two consultant clinical psychologists: one leading the Community Psychological Service and the other leading the ATTACH service.

For context, the Community Service provides a range of consultation and training to the wider local authority safeguarding and edge of care teams and provides specialist psychological assessment and therapeutic interventions to children and their families where there are concerns about the child engaging in harmful sexual behaviour.

The ATTACH service delivers psychological support into our Children We Care for, Care Leavers, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking young people and Special Guardianship teams, and includes support to our Residential and Fostering services. Our team works with carers and professionals to develop shared understanding and effective trauma-informed packages of care for children and young people including therapeutic parenting approaches for carers, DDP-informed interventions for dyads of children and carers and individual psychotherapeutic interventions for some children and young people.

Rewards and Benefits

As an employer we recognise that it is our employees that are central to everything we do. We aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work they do. Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including the following:

We offer a generous Local Government Pension scheme, which is one of the largest pension schemes in the UK. The LGPS provides you with a secure and guaranteed income every year when you stop working.

For a full list, this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Please Get In Touch

We welcome informal enquiries ahead of application to explore how this opportunity might fit your professional goals and values. For an informal conversation or for further information regarding the role, please contact Dr Jenny Mount (Consultant Clinical Psychologist) at .

The reference number for this role is CAFHE05685.

For issues or queries regarding your application please contact .

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to HCPC registration, an enhanced DBS check, 5 years referencing and a health check.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce, that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants to be at their best and to ensure they have the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.