Location
London Borough of Hackney

Hours
Full Time

Salary
£78,090 per annum

About the Role
Hackney is seeking an experienced and dynamic Clinical Team Lead to head our newly redesigned, in-house Mental Health Service within Children and Family Services. In this pivotal role, you will manage a specialist team of therapists dedicated to supporting looked-after children, care leavers, and young people within the Youth Justice Service.

Our service includes an established Family Therapy clinic and delivers flexible, trauma-informed care to some of our most vulnerable children and families. Beyond direct clinical delivery, you will champion indirect support—providing high-quality consultation, reflective supervision, and tailored training to social workers and frontline staff across the Children and Education Directorate.

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. We want our leadership to reflect and champion these values.

Key Responsibilities
Clinical & Operational Leadership: Provide robust management, clinical governance, and strategic direction to a multidisciplinary team consisting of two Highly Specialist Therapists, 6.6FT Specialist Therapists and one Assistant Psychologist.

Direct Clinical Intervention: Oversee and deliver evidence-based, direct psychological interventions to children and young people across the Corporate Parenting Service (including foster care, residential care, special guardianship, care leavers, and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children) and the Youth Justice Service.

Workforce Consultation & Support: Embed clinical thinking across the wider directorate by facilitating reflective spaces, offering expert consultation, and delivering clinical assessments and formulations to support frontline social work staff.

Partnerships: Maintain and develop our strong statutory partnerships with local CAMHS colleagues and NHS Trusts to ensure seamless care pathways.

What We Offer
In return for your expertise and dedication, Hackney offers a supportive, collaborative environment committed to your professional growth. We provide robust systemic support, including external clinical supervision for different therapeutic modalities as required, alongside excellent local authority benefits.

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 apply. We operate a fair and open anonymous selection process and do not accept supporting statements or CVs. The application process includes competency-based questions to demonstrate your suitability.

Closing date for applications: 09 August 2026 (22:59)
Interview date: Week commencing 24 August 2026

Experience
- Proven track record of supervisory or team management experience
- Deep expertise in working therapeutically with highly vulnerable children, young people, and their networks from pre-birth to leaving care
- Strong understanding of complex trauma, systemic practice, and safeguarding

About you
- Senior registered clinician (e.g., UKCP, HCPC, BACP, or equivalent)
- Leadership skills to lead and inspire a team, manage clinical risk safely, and evaluate service outcomes
- Profound, demonstrable commitment to anti-racist and anti-oppressive practice
- Ability to embed clinical thinking across a multidisciplinary team and wider directorate
- Commitment to the Council’s “PROUD” values: Purpose and Respect, Ownership, Unity and Diversity

Qualifications
- Registered clinician status with relevant professional body (e.g., UKCP, HCPC, BACP)
- Enhanced DBS check required for this role