Band 5

Job summary

We are offering two full time Band 5 posts with a half day a week specifically identified during your first year with us for Continuing Professional Development and working on your Competencies.

You will work with early years and school age children in a range of settings: community clinics; preschool settings; homes: schools and sometimes remotely. You will learn to assess children, put together therapy plans, advise and train others as well as carrying out therapy yourself.

You will have a comprehensive induction period and be supported by friendly and experienced colleagues across all the teams. Specifically, you will have supervision from a clinical lead fortnightly to begin with and then tailored to your needs. You will have easy access to a buddy for those questions you feel you can't KEEP asking and be part of a peer supervision group which meets every two or three months.

You will join our team at the same time as, or within a few weeks of, another Band 5 with whom you will spend your weekly CPD afternoon. There will be a number of short tutorials during these sessions covering a wide range of topics such as time management, writing reports, how to choose the right assessment etc

Main duties of the job

In the Early Years Team you will work towards becoming an autonomous clinic therapist: you will meet with families, assess their children, and discuss your findings with parents/carers and/or setting staff. Together you will agree a plan of action to meet the child's speech, language or communication needs, this might be through advice and a home, or setting, intervention plan, parent coaching, direct therapy, or perhaps a referral on to a different team .

In the Mainstream Schools Team you will work towards becoming the Link Therapist for a group of schools: each school is allocated a Link SLT, who meets with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator for Planning meetings at the start of term, to establish caseload priorities give advice, discuss school led support, such as Narrative Groups or School Start, identify any Education Health Care Plan support required and talk about any training needs within the school. During the term, the Link SLT will assess children, and discuss findings and any speech language and communication needs with school staff and parents/carers. Together you will agree a plan of action to meet the child's speech, language or communication needs, this might be through advice and an intervention plan for school staff to carry out, staff training, direct therapy demonstration, or perhaps a referral on to a different team.

About us

The Trust is committed to staff Development and Well-Being. SCFT rand recognizes that its employees play a vital role in progress towards the vision of excellent care at the heart of the community. For further information please take time to look at the Staff Benefits Brochure benefits-brochure-june2021-digital.pdf (scft.nhs.uk)

The Central Locality of the Trust is in the northern sector of West Sussex, about an hour from London and Brighton. There are 48 of us in the Central Children's Speech and Language Therapy Team, including our Fantastic Admin staff and Amazing Speech and Language Therapy Assistants.

Across SCFT there are around 150 staff in the Children's Speech and Language Therapy Service giving plenty of scope for team working and career development. If you have a particular area of interest let us know.

Why not give us a ring to find out more!