Child and/or Adolescent Psychotherapist

at  The Pastoral Centre Counselling Psychotherapy Service

Position: Child and/or adolescent Psychotherapist
Location: Raphoe Pastoral Centre, Letterkenny
Organisation: Raphoe Pastoral Centre
Introduction
This is an exciting opportunity for an accredited, compassionate, and skilled Child and/or Adolescent Psychotherapist to join our expanding clinical team in Letterkenny. The role is focused on supporting young people grappling with increasingly complex emotional, relational, and societal pressures by employing collaborative, age appropriate, and engaging approaches (including play therapy, art therapy, or other creative modalities).
The successful candidate(s) will have practice working with children and/or adolescents who have experienced trauma; they will provide creative interventions to help children and/or adolescents adjust, build resilience, and thrive, while also engaging parents to support meaningful change when appropriate.
Given the sessional/contracted nature of the post, the successful candidate(s) will enjoy a degree of flexibility in terms of the number of hours they wish to dedicate to working within The Pastoral Centre Clinical Team.
Person Specification

QUALIFICATIONS

Essential

• A recognized qualification at minimum Level 8* or higher qualification on the NQAI framework in Counselling and/ or Psychotherapy.
• Be a fully accredited Psychotherapist with a professional accrediting body (IACP, IAHIP, FTAI, APAC, other) and have completed 50 hours of personal therapy as part of training.
• Experience working therapeutically with clients aged under 18 years old is essential.
• Specialist psychotherapy training and knowledge acquired to postgraduate degree level to work with children and/or adolescents.

*A recognised Level 7 in Counselling and / or Psychotherapy obtained pre-2018 along with accreditation will be accepted.

EXPERIENCE

Essential

• At least two years of post-qualifying experience working with clients up to the age of 18 in private practice or in a specialist psychotherapy service.
• Experience of assessing complex and concerning child and/or adolescents caseloads; managing clinical need and risk together with resource challenges

SKILLS

Essential

• Capacity to apply in depth knowledge of child and/or adolescents psychotherapeutic thinking/theory to case presentation focusing on their unique experiences and the challenges they face in today’s world.
• Skills for assessing highly complex cases and applying appropriate therapeutic interventions in collaboration with clients.
• Work in accordance with the Counselling Service’s Policies, Procedures and Guidelines to ensure consistent delivery of services and compliance with legislation in the following areas: Health and Safety, GDPR and Child Protection etc.
• Share information with the Service Coordinator, Director of Service, and other services as appropriate in accordance with good practice
• Ability to manage own clinical caseload effectively; maintaining accurate, confidential records of practice using Evide, and identifying risk and safeguarding issues as they arise
• Ability to foster good working relationships with psychotherapy team, external agencies, and clinical network for client
• Ability to fulfil obligations as per the Children First Act 2015
• Attend group clinical supervision (organised by Counselling Service) and attend appropriate individual supervision externally as required
• Maintain professional and personal boundaries
• Participate in psychotherapist team meetings, management support meetings (MSMs) and attend other meetings as deemed necessary
• Ability to reflect on practice in order to facilitate personal learning, professional development and service improvement
• Demonstrate great warmth and the ability to empathize
• Strong interpersonal & communication skills
• Ability to work co-operatively as part of a team
• Strong time management skills and capacity to prioritize competing demands

Please refer the Job description for details