Job overview

We have an exciting opportunity to join the Cheshire and Merseyside Specialist Speech and Language Therapy Network for Deaf People. If you have a passion for working in the field of Deafness, then we have the vacancy for you. We are looking to appoint a Highly Specialist SLT and we welcome applications from candidates with the pre-requisite skills at a highly specialist level as well as from those who aspire to develop their knowledge and skills in this specialist clinical area. Under Annex 21, we are offering you the opportunity to complete a dedicated competency framework, with access to regular supervision from experienced clinicians, focused CPD activities and a clear pathway for completion of your training (including British Sign Language Levels 1 and 2).

As part of the Cheshire and Merseyside SLT Network for Deaf People, you would work in Alder Hey Foundation Trust based in the community in Liverpool. You will work with children, young people, adults, and their families in settings, across the city. You would also be part of the wider Network, working with a team of Highly Specialist SLTs who are dynamic and passionate about the support they provide. This offers a great support network throughout the team. You will work alongside our local community SLT team to provide specialist assessment and intervention, with the opportunity to train and support local professionals. We work collaboratively with our education colleagues (such as Teachers of the Deaf) and audiology.

Main duties of the job

You will be part of the Network team based in Liverpool, providing highly specialist support for children and young people who are Deaf, and their families, across a range of settings (that may include resource bases).

You will manage a complex and highly specialist caseload, using evidence-based practice/client-based principles to assess, plan, formulate, implement, and evaluate interventions.

You will work collaboratively with SLTs; Teachers of the Deaf; and other education professionals, providing assessment and intervention to meet the needs of the specialist caseload.

You will also utilise your specialist skills in Deafness to support differential diagnosis and support of co-occurring conditions, such as Autism, Developmental Language and Speech Disorders. You will work with colleagues in the community team to support and develop their knowledge in Deafness, providing training and second opinions as needed.

You will contribute to service development and quality improvement projects to shape the delivery of specialist speech and language therapy for Deaf people across the Network.

We offer an induction period to enable you to shadow and work with the therapists across the region as well as ongoing support, supervision, training and CPD opportunities.

Working for our organisation

As one of Europe’s biggest and busiest children’s hospitals, at Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, we treat everything from common illnesses to highly complex and specialist conditions. In addition to our main hospital site, we offer paediatric services at a number of community sites and hold local clinics across Merseyside, Cumbria, Shropshire, Wales and the Isle of Man. We also provide specialist inpatient care for children with complex mental health needs in our recently relocated and newly opened state of the art facility.

Alder Hey has a thriving research portfolio and leads research into children’s medicines, infection, inflammation and oncology. We are becoming recognised as one of the world’s leaders in children’s healthcare and research. We contribute to public health, lead cutting-edge research and teach the next generation of children’s specialists. Alongside this is our Innovation Hub, a dedicated space where clinicians and industries can come together to create new products and technologies.

We know that a children’s hospital is different and that our job is more than just treating an illness. To us, every child is an individual. As well as giving them the very best care, we set out to make them feel happy, safe and confident as they play, learn and grow. At Alder Hey we are here to look after a child and their family and that includes mums, dads, brothers and sisters.