Specialist Therapist – Children and Families Service

Hackney is seeking enthusiastic, committed, and skilled Therapists to join our newly redesigned in-house Mental Health Service within Children and Family Services. Working closely alongside Social Workers, Corporate Parenting, Youth Justice, Edge of Care, and Early Help teams, you will play a central role in ensuring our most vulnerable children receive timely, high-quality, and evidence-based psychological support.

In this role, you will hold autonomous clinical responsibility for a complex caseload and have the opportunity to contribute directly to our Family Therapy Clinic. Beyond direct therapeutic delivery, you will bring strong indirect therapy skills—delivering expert consultations to social care managers, facilitating reflective practice groups, and providing clinical formulations that directly shape statutory social work plans.

Our Practice Framework: The STAR Model

Hackney is on an ambitious journey to embed a Systemic, Trauma-informed, and Anti-Racist (STAR) practice model. We are deeply committed to anti-oppressive practice, actively centering the lived experiences of families and clinicians with marginalised identities. Our STAR framework ensures a sharp focus on ethnicity and race, while deeply attending to the intersections of sexuality, faith, neurodiversity, and other protected characteristics. As a Specialist Therapist, you will integrate this STAR framework into every assessment, formulation, and intervention to dismantle systemic inequalities and improve outcomes for children and families.

Key Responsibilities

– Autonomous Clinical Practice: Deliver regular, highly specialist therapeutic assessments, formulations, and multi-modal interventions (e.g., Systemic Family Therapy, Art Therapy, CBT, Psychotherapy) adapted for children in care, care leavers, or young people within the Youth Justice System.

– Safeguarding & Complex Caseloads: Hold accountability for managing clinical risk (including self-harm and suicidal ideation) integrated with social care safety plans.

– Specialist Consultation & Systemic Influence: Provide expert “strategic consultation” to Social Workers and managers to help formulate complex mental health needs, prevent placement breakdown, and translate psychological theory into actionable social work plans.

– Reflective Practice & Skills Sharing: Lead reflective practice groups for social care teams, act as a Trauma-Informed Champion, and deliver training and peer-mentoring across the Directorate.

– Multi-Agency & Court Representation: interface with NHS statutory health providers to manage complex care pathways and ensure no child falls between the gaps. Participate in Child Protection Conferences, LAC Reviews, and MARAC/MAPPA, producing high-quality analytical clinical reports for social care networks and Family or Criminal Courts when required.
About You

We are looking for a registered, post-graduate qualified clinician (e.g., UKCP, AFT, HCPC, ACP, BPS, or equivalent) with significant post-qualification experience in mental health or social care settings. You will bring:

– A post-graduate degree-level qualification in a relevant therapeutic discipline and current registration with a recognised professional body.

– Proven experience in exercising autonomous clinical responsibility for complex assessment, formulation, and treatment of children who have experienced developmental trauma, loss, or abuse.

– Advanced knowledge of systemic theory, attachment models, and trauma-informed care applied within a statutory social care framework.

– Demonstrated ability to provide expert consultation, facilitate reflective spaces, and contain organisational stress and anxiety for non-clinical colleagues.

– A profound, demonstrable commitment to anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and social justice-led practice.

An Enhanced DBS check is required for this role.

What We Offer

In return for your expertise and dedication, Hackney offers a supportive, collaborative environment committed to your ongoing professional growth. We value learning and development, providing regular professional supervision, whole-team reflective spaces and CPD days with external/internal experts, and opportunities to lead skills-sharing sessions in your specialist field.

As a Council, our most outstanding asset is our staff, who are highly dedicated to serving our residents and committed to our goals as an organisation.

If you want to work in a place where you can represent our values so we achieve the best for our residents, please click on the apply button below.

We operate a fair and open anonymous selection process. Therefore, we do not accept supporting statements or CVs.

To proceed with your application, you will need to create an account and submit your application.

As part of the application process, you will need to complete a number of competency-based questions. These questions allow you to demonstrate your suitability for the role and provide examples of your skills, knowledge, and experience outlined in the job description.

We understand the benefits of using AI in the workplace. However, if you are thinking of using this tool to submit your application, we ask you to think about what value it will add. AI tools tend to lack the personal touch and authenticity we value in candidates. We encourage you to showcase your unique knowledge and skills using your own voice.

This application process replaces a supporting statement.

Prior to applying for a vacancy for a secondment opportunity, please liaise with your line manager and inform them of your interest in applying for the role.

Closing date for applications: 27 September 2026 (22:59)

Interview date: Wc 12 October 2026

Please note we if we receive a high number of applications we reserve the right to close applications early.

We are working towards our vision, which is to be a place for everyone; where residents and staff can be proud. In order to achieve this, we are seeking individuals who embody our “PROUD” values: Purpose and Respect, where we foster belonging through active inclusion, kindness, and open dialogue; Ownership, where we champion proactive collaboration and accountability for our shared success; and Unity and Diversity, where we work as one Council to break down silos and champion anti-racist behavior.

Hackney Council works to eradicate discrimination on the basis of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. We also recognise that people can be disadvantaged by their social and economic circumstances, so we will also work to eliminate discrimination and disadvantage caused by social class. We also welcome those interested in flexible working. We particularly welcome applications from disabled people, as this group is currently under represented in our workforce.

The Council has a dedicated employment support service (Hackney Works), which offers Hackney residents guidance in relation to applying for jobs. If you are thinking about applying for a job, please contact the Hackney Works team to find out what support is available: hackneyworks@hackney.gov.uk