Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Highly specialist speech & language therapist - Early Years Team

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Job Overview
Would you like to be part of a friendly and supportive SLT team?
Do you want to develop your leadership skills?
0.6 WTE Band 7 role:
We are looking for a passionate speech and language therapist to work in the Hillingdon Early Years team supporting children and young people who have a speech, language or communication need.
You will be part of a supportive band 7 team - and take a lead in developing projects and supervising more junior staff.
Have a look on our Hillingdon Talks, Moves and Plays website to find out about our wider service.
Main duties of the job
- To provide a highly specialist assessment and intervention service for children 0-19 with Speech Language and or communication needs.
- To be part of the ADOS assessment process.
- To provide a highly specialist assessment and intervention service to children 0-19 who have swallowing, eating and drinking difficulties.
- To support in the development of training packages to early years settings, staff / parents / other professionals, in order for them to identify concerns regarding the child /young persons needs and implement therapy advice effectively.
- To support the service to achieve Key Performance Indicators, maintaining Target Activity Levels and demonstrating impact re quality and outcomes.
- To lead on quality governance, audits and projects for the team/service.
- To be responsible for the performance management of identified team members.
- To support the team leader in the leading and development of the team.
- To be responsible with team leader support for service improvement initiatives.
Working for our organisation
We can offer you:
- A buddy who will meet with you every week at first to help you settle in and who you can ask lots of questions.
- Regular supervision meetings with the team leader every 6 weeks, alongside annual appraisal and informal support.
- Termly peer supervision meetings where you can discuss difficult cases, read articles together and share your experiences.
- Regular meetings with the other band 7 SLTs to ensure that the workload is being shared and support given.
- A busy but manageable caseload.
- Opportunities to develop your clinical and leadership skills and knowledge through termly study afternoons, shadowing more experienced therapists/ leaders, membership of a CEN, training courses - clinical and leadership.
Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities
- To assess, develop and implement highly specialist Speech and Language Therapy intervention.
- To provide appropriate highly specialist intervention / assessment and evaluate outcomes.
- To demonstrate highly developed auditory and perceptual skills in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of children 0-19.
- To facilitate relevant professionals/parents to carry out speech and language therapy programmes/strategies/advice.
- To monitor the effectiveness of speech and language therapy programmes/strategies/advice being delivered by other relevant professionals/parents and adjust as necessary.
- To make a differential diagnosis, including complex cases, on the basis of evidence from assessment.
- To develop clear packages of care based on best practice and differential diagnosis and to use highly specialist clinical knowledge to inform case management.
- To demonstrate clinical effectiveness by use of evidence based practice and outcome measures.
- To keep up to date with new techniques and developments for the promotion and maintenance of good practice in own highly specialist clinical area.
- To demonstrate the ability to reflect on practice with peers and supervisors and identify own strengths and development needs.
- To manage caseload independently and to prioritise workload using highly specialist.
- To recognise potential breakdown and conflict when it occurs and seek to resolve using highly developed negotiation skills, seeking further support from team leader if necessary.
- To ensure that children / young people, their families and schools / nurseries are involved in the planning and implementation of their care.
- To maintain sensitivity to the emotional needs of children & their families, especially when imparting potentially distressing information regarding the nature of the child’s difficulties and its implications.
- To attend case conferences & core group meetings for children / young people on the caseload, where appropriate.
- To submit safeguarding reports to case conferences ad reviews.
- To record all concerns and discussions/supervision regarding safeguarding issues in Systmone clinical notes.
- To attend safeguarding supervision for all children / young people with a Child Protection Plan at least every 12 weeks.
- To provide safeguarding supervision (when trained) for team members on a rotational basis.
- To work independently and to access clinical supervision sessions on a regular basis & actively contribute to own appraisal on an annual basis.
- To collate evidence of professional development related to the RCSLT CPD log.
- To demonstrate highly developed negotiation skills across a range of issues and to negotiate with others around case management in highly complex cases.
- To deal with complaints sensitively avoiding escalation where possible, and to inform the team leader in a timely fashion.
- To communicate highly complex information from assessments and ongoing therapy to children / young people, families and other professionals.
- To write outcome focused reports, and programmes/target sheets reflecting highly specialist knowledge which meet the needs of the child / young person.
- To support the development of, and adhere to, service plans and policies giving constructive feedback as appropriate.
- To advise team leader on issues of service shortfall or pressure.
- To assume delegated leadership responsibilities and tasks as requested by TL.
- To work within infection control and health and safety guidelines.
- To report all incidents in a timely fashion and access learning following incident investigation outcomes & complaints. Attend training to complete incident investigations.
- To support other team members in the reporting of incidents in a timely fashion.
- To work within legal frameworks including: SEND reforms e.g Statutory EHCP assessments, London safeguarding procedures and policies.
- To attend, contribute to and present at Team and Departmental meetings.
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Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Recognised Speech and Language Therapy Degree qualification or equivalent (minimum of 2:2 or equivalent).
- Further training courses relevant to the post.
- Attendance at special interest group/ clinical excellence group.
- Health and Care Professions Council licence to practice.
- Registered member of relevant organisation eg Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and other relevant bodies.
- Successful completion of highly specialist/expert short courses including ASD, Education practice.


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Desirable criteria
- First class honours degree or equivalent.
- Successful completion of highly specialist advanced post graduate study at MSc or equivalent.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Extensive experience of working in a mainstream/special school as a therapist.
- Training and experience of working with children with eating and swallowing difficulties.
- Experience of working within multidisciplinary /multi-agency team. Detailed knowledge of multi-disciplinary team approaches.
- Experience of managing/supervising more junior staff and students and participating in appraisal.
- Evidence of continuing professional development.
- Experience of assessing children using the ADOS assessment tool.
- Experience of working with other agencies.
- Management experience, undertaking delegated departmental duties at Band 6 level or above.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of leading audits.
- Participate in research / evaluation of practice. Knowledge of basic qualitative & quantitative research approaches and of the key elements of writing a research protocol.
- Leadership of and/or participation in a special interest group across disciplines.
Skills and Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Ability to prioritise and manage time effectively.
- Ability to mentor and support junior therapists and students promoting clinical excellence in self and others.
- Ability to clearly communicate assessment findings giving verbal and written reports that deliver complex information to carers, young people and other health professionals.
- Knowledge of advanced approaches to support clients & carers with challenging behaviour, mental health needs or in high levels of distress.
- Demonstrate knowledge of standards of practice and guidelines e.g. HCPC Professional Conduct Guidelines.
- Demonstrate an awareness of current legislation and act in accordance e.g. Child protection.
- Implementation of national initiatives and legislation relating to Health and Social Care in relation to children with developmental concerns and disabilities.
- Ability to be actively involved in development and implementation of clinical policies and procedures.
- Evidence of knowledge of conditions likely to be encountered in Community Paediatrics and their impact on a child’s functional abilities, independence and development e.g. Cerebral Palsy, Developmental Co-ordination Disorders, ADHD, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Severe Learning Disabilities and Developmental Delay.
- Working knowledge and understanding of a highly specialist range of assessment tools and procedures to evaluate the strengths and needs of young people (birth -19) who present with a wide range of needs (as relevant to professional discipline).
Other
Essential criteria
- Be proficient in data management and information governance and comfortable with learning new clinical record keeping systems.
- Demonstrate ability to analyse performance data and high quality performance reports.
- Be computer literate with working knowledge and ability to use appropriate computer software.
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