Job Title: Clinical Practitioner (Therapist)
Location: Bristol
Salary: £30,900 - £41,200 pro-rata
Working Pattern: Part Time, Permanent (21 hours per week)
Blue Sky Fostering is currently seeking a part time qualified Therapist to join the team as a Clinical Practitioner for Attachment-based Therapeutic Work in the West Country area, covering Bristol, Swindon and Gloucester.
Who are we?
BSN Social Care is the parent company of Blue Sky Fostering.
Blue Sky Fostering is an established Independent Fostering Agency, operating across the south of England, to provide foster placements to children and young people. We have been rated ‘Outstanding’ for five consecutive inspections since 2008.
We provide a number of different services including mainstream fostering for children aged 0-18 and Parent and Child Placements. We also have an established and well regarded Therapeutic Led Care (TLC) service where our team of experienced clinical practitioners work alongside specialist foster carers to provide therapeutic care to children to prevent them moving to residential care.
Our ethos is to provide the best service possible for children, and for all children placed with us to achieve their full potential. We work hard to ensure children experience love, care, nurture and stability with our carers.
The Role
Blue Sky Fostering has a brilliant opportunity for a knowledgeable and experienced Therapist to join the team as a Clinical Practitioner in the West Country working in conjunction with our hub in Bristol.
We are looking for a dedicated and dependable therapist who is drawn to this field of work. This position holds a responsibility for delivering the Blue Sky + TLC (Therapeutically Led Care) service which exists to meet the needs of developmentally traumatised and poorly attached children and young people, who may be very challenging to care for.
As a Clinical Practitioner, you will be responsible for supporting our TLC Carers with Reflective Practice (RP) work on weekly basis, in groups and individually. Reflective Practice work provides a space for carers to express, explore and process their emotional responses to young people; enhance their understanding of behaviours; and identify underlying feelings and needs. It also allows carers to be supported with identifying empathic ways of responding as well as enhancing their ways of being with the young person that are most likely to provide opportunities to connect, manage, calm, and reflect.
The successful candidate will need to have the ability to work with a wide range of people, personalities and skillsets in order to support the delivery of the Blue Sky + TLC programme. As a Clinical Practitioner, you will need to have a sense of self-awareness and possess good relational skills. You will also need to be open-minded, flexible and pragmatic with an interest in ‘what works, for these people, at this time’. Being resilient, enthusiastic and having a sense of humour is also essential.
In this role, you will need to have the desire to learn and develop, be willing to compromise and be solution orientated. To successfully meet the needs of the Blue Sky + TLC service, you will need to be forward thinking, creative and responsive to the needs of both the young people we care for, and the carers who take on this demanding yet rewarding task.
Location
For this role, willingness to travel and use of a car is essential as the successful applicant will be required to support foster carers and visit placements across Bristol and the West Country area.
What we’re looking for
To apply for this position, it is essential you:
Why work for us?
Everyone is welcome
Diversity and inclusion are the principles for how we build our teams and Blue Sky Fostering strives to create an inclusive culture where all forms of diversity are valued and celebrated. We want a workforce which represents the communities we serve and work, to ensure no applicant or employee is treated unfairly on the basis of race, gender, age, disability, religion or identity. We recognise and value the individual differences and contributions of all employees and believe that by working together we can achieve equality for all.
*Blue Sky Fostering is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children and vulnerable people in our care. Successful applicants will be subject to a Disclosure and Barring Service check.