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The Opportunity

Salary: Hay B £59,991 to £63,411 per annum

Contract Type: Permanent

Working Pattern: 37 hours per week, full-time, Monday to Friday 09:00am - 17:00pm

Location: Countywide; your base location will be agreed with you at interview

Please note: You must be able to travel throughout the county including to locations that are not always accessible by public transport. There is a regular and intrinsic requirement to communicate in English with members of the public.

Closing date: 12 July 2026

Interview date: 31 July 2026

Are you a qualified and experienced Cognitive Behavioural psychological therapist?

Would you like to be part of the expansion of Mental Health Support Teams in West Sussex as we move towards 100% coverage of children and young people by 2029?

Are you passionate about supporting children and young people?

Do you enjoy supervising, training, and mentoring others?

West Sussex County Council's Mental Health Support Team, known locally as Thought-Full, have a new opportunity to join us as a Senior Psychological Therapist.

As a Senior Psychological Therapist, you will be an accountable lead clinician within a multidisciplinary team, providing clinical leadership alongside two other Senior Psychological Therapists.

You will supervise Senior Mental Health Practitioners, advising and supporting the team through consultation, supervision, training, and education. This includes leadership and management of psychological practitioners such as low intensity practitioners and trainee and qualified psychological therapists.

The key responsibilities and tasks for a Senior Psychological Therapist include, but are not limited to:

Clinical

• Evaluating and making decisions about treatment options, using analytical and judgement skills for clinical management.
• Contributing to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care, using theoretical and therapeutic models.
• Promoting user and carer involvement in care planning.

Management, Leadership, Recruitment, Policy and Service Development

• Working within professional guidelines, advising on policy, and contributing to service development.

Research and Service Evaluation

• Researching, evaluating, and using evidence-based practice to undertake project management and development of service provision.

Teaching, Training, and Supervision

• Clinically supervising trainee and qualified psychological therapists.
• Developing skills, delivering training, and ensuring trainees acquire the necessary skills to fulfil their roles.

General duties

• Continued professional registration, complying with Continuous Professional Development.
• Contributing to the development of an open learning culture.
• Record keeping and maintaining up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local polices, procedures, HR policies, therapeutic modality, and mental health & wellbeing.

For more information on the Key Skills, Qualifications and/or Experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

About You

To thrive in this role, you will have experience of working across multi-agency settings, delivering evidence-based interventions with children and young people.

You will have knowledge and experience in delivering Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) and Psychotherapy, in both low and high intensity delivery, with a high level of specialist knowledge and experience in applying psychological therapy to complex cases for children, young people, and their families.

We are looking for someone who has a passion for innovation and collaboration, ensuring colleagues are treated equitably.

You will be expected to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, including a demanding workload.

Postgraduate training in supervision of CBT is desirable, but training can be provided.

Please refer to the key skills in your cover letter as these will be used for shortlisting criteria.

Key Skills:

1. Skills and experience in the clinical supervision of others using a clear and theoretically informed approach.
2. Ability to communicate effectively verbally and in writing, presenting information that is accessible, engaging, and accurate including the communication of clinically sensitive, and sometimes highly technical, information to children and young people, their families and other professionals.
3. Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
4. Ability to plan and implement projects.
5. Skills in self-management including time management, ability to maintain sustained concentration and managing a high number of competing work demands whilst taking care of own wellbeing.
6. Ability to identity and employ as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material.

Qualifications and/or experience: please refer to the Job Description attached.

About Us

Our Mental Health Support Team is made up of over 70 professionals, and we are continuing to increase our services to support the growing needs of our communities in West Sussex. You will be working within our Mental Health Support Team (MHST) on exciting new initiatives and an important strand of the Government's 2017 Green Paper 'Transforming Children and Young People's Mental Health Provision', and as part of the Government ambition to achieve 100% coverage of MHSTs by 2029/30.

We fulfil 3 core functions:

• Delivering evidence-based interventions in education settings (primary and secondary schools and colleges) for mild to moderate mental health issues.
• Supporting the senior mental health lead in each education setting to introduce or develop their whole school or college approach.
• Giving timely advice to school and college staff, and liaising with external specialist services, to help children and young people to get the right support and stay in education.

For more information, please visit our Instagram WS Thoughtfull page and our WSCC Services for Education website.

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.

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

Upon joining us you will have access to a range of benefits including the following:

Employer Pension Contribution: TBC for 2026. This alters per annum on the 1 April each year (previous employer contribution for 2025 18.70%).

Annual leave: 30 days holiday + Bank Holidays = 38 days

How to Apply

The reference number for this role is CAFHE06288.

To apply, please go to WSCC job board, or follow the links to upload your CV and Cover Letter.

In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and vulnerable adults.

This post is subject to an enhanced DBS check, five years referencing, and an occupational 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.

If you require any reasonable adjustments to support your application, please contact Natalie Greene, Recruitment Specialist, at