Senior Educational Psychologist X 2

Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites. In Bexley we are passionate about early intervention, innovation, and multi-agency working. 

The Educational Psychology team works closely alongside specialist teaching services and other professionals and is led by a Principal Educational Psychologist and a strong Senior Educational Psychologist team, with a focus on early intervention and collaboration. Within this structure, there is commitment to Educational Psychologists retaining a strong professional identity and continuing to maintain a high level of professional skills, as well as working collaboratively with other services to achieve better outcomes for children.  With the support of 5 years DfE funding we have recently established a team of Assistant Psychologists who are working with our EPs to deliver additional early intervention programmes to our early years and school settings. 

The service is highly valued by schools and by colleagues in health and social care, which promotes high quality partnership working and joint project initiatives.  There is a strong commitment to continually improving the quality of our assessment, training and project-based interventions. High priority is given to induction, supervision, reflective practice and continuous professional development. 

Do you have a strong inclusive vision and are you passionate about ensuring better outcomes for children and young people so they can achieve their aspirations? Have you the enthusiasm, skills and knowledge base to lead in early intervention?

We are expanding our senior team and therefore looking to recruit additional Senior Educational Psychologists to further develop our creative and evolving EP offer. Our priorities are driven by a passion to extend cross-agency partnership working and further promote early intervention and improved educational outcomes for the children and young people throughout our borough. We are seeking to appoint innovative HCPC registered Educational Psychologists who have at least 5 years experience, can demonstrate experience and creativity in developing an area of specialism, and who have actively contributed to the induction, supervision and development of staff. 

 
In addition to providing high quality Educational Psychology services and supervising and supporting the development of EPs in the team, the successful candidates will be an integral part of the Senior Educational Psychologist team and responsible for the strategic development of key priority areas across the service. We currently have specific opportunities in relation to the areas of Early Years (FTE SEP role) and Complex Health / Medical Needs (part time SEP role). 

As Specialist Senior EP for Early Years, you will take the lead in maintaining and evolving strategic links with cross-agency Early Years Services and Early Years Settings to continue to devise and implement a range of practices to ensure young children have a coordinated and positive education trajectory. Additionally, this exciting post includes a pivotal role in relation to overseeing intervention work delivered by our Assistant EPs, joint working with our health and early years partners, alongside Line Management of the Bexley Portage team (accredited as a 5* service by the National Portage Association, NPA).  

As Specialist Senior EP for Complex Health / Medical, you will work alongside senior EP colleagues and health colleagues to take a leading and strategic role in growing and embedding our support for schools, partners, and providers in their work to promote the inclusion, achievement and wellbeing of all children and young people in the Borough who may be experiencing complex health needs. Importantly this will include a focus on hearing, learning from and responding creatively to the lived experiences of the young people themselves.  

So, if you want a role that requires innovative practice and where you are empowered to drive forward change, and if you have the determination and expertise to make a real difference to the lives of children and young people in Bexley, we want to hear from you.  

Specifically, we can offer you: 

• A genuinely diverse team who have ongoing commitment to hiring a diverse workforce, and who consistently look at issues related to equality and diversity from a holistic lens to address conscious and unconscious bias.  
• A creative and friendly team that are highly valued by schools, families and other teams in the Local Authority which offers a prominent level of professional support within a culture of high-quality supervision. 
• Excellent CPD opportunities, both within the team and dedicated funding for external courses. 
  Opportunities to use professional skills outside of the schools context, working with health and social care. This includes being an integral part of a broader multi-professional early intervention and specialist advice service. 
• Dedicated time to deliver therapeutic interventions to children and young people (e.g. CBT, SFBT, VIG). 
  Protected time and support to develop a specialist area of interest at a strategic / systemic level in line with the specified focus area (Early Years or Complex Health/Medical).  
• Dedicated time to extend supervision skills, including opportunities to supervise and support the development of colleagues across teams and services. 
• Good ICT systems that enable smooth working from home and in our modern office, which supports hybrid working practice. 

We honour SPA points and reimburse our EPs for HCPC and DBS registration fees. 

All candidates would be expected to hold a good honours degree in Psychology with a post graduate qualification at Masters or Doctorate level, which is recognised by the Health Care Professionals Council and acceptable to the British Psychological Society as constituting clinical training as an Educational Psychologist. 

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached. 
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)  
This authority is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. 

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.     

Use the ‘Apply for vacancy’ button. 

Anticipated Interview Date: Friday 21st June

 
Please note that the system has a one-hour time limit. We would advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised and have your CV and/or Supporting statement ready to upload. 

If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence. 
 
Additional Information 

As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on  recruitment@bexley.gov.uk  

This role may be available as a development opportunity through secondment for the Council’s existing employees.  The Council’s Secondment Scheme can be found here. If this option is of interest, please contact the recruiting manager. 

Grade 

Soulbury B Senior Educational Psychologist Scale - points 2 to 5 plus up to 3 SPA points. 
Contract Hours 

Senior Educational Psychologist (Early Years): 36.00 – FTE 
 
Senior Educational Psychologist (Complex Health/Medical): up to 21.60 – 0.6 FTE