Job Title: Creative Therapist (bank)

Salary: 22.87 per hour

Team: Family Support Service

Hours:  2-3 days per week (14-21 hours)

Location: Christopher’s or Shooting Star House

About Shooting Star Children’s Hospices

We have an exciting opportunity for an Art, Drama, Play or Creative Therapist to join our team at Shooting Star Children’s Hospices to help extend our care to more families.

Shooting Star Children’s Hospices provides specialist care and support to families who have a baby, child or young person with a life-limiting condition, or whose child dies suddenly or unexpectedly. Rated ‘Outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission, we support families across Surrey, north-west London and south-west London from diagnosis to end of life and throughout bereavement.

t the heart of what we do are our dedicated staff; their exceptional commitment and professionalism means every family has the opportunity to make every moment count.                                                                                                                       

It’s a great time to join Shooting Star Children’s Hospices as we launched our Specialist Bereavement Service at the end of 2023 and we are now supporting more bereaved families than ever before, alongside our usual caseload of life-limited children and their siblings. Our team of arts therapists is expanding to ensure we can deliver care to those who need it.

About the role

We call this role “bank”, but we realise this may be a little confusing. Our bank therapists are paid hourly and can have flexibility arranging holidays. We ask you to choose two or three days of the week that you will work and we will provide you with a caseload of children and young people for these days. This is a bank (zero-hours) contract rather than a permanent contract with fixed hours and notice period. You will have access to a wide range of staff benefits and training.

The key purpose of this role is to provide high quality, evidence-based art, drama or play therapy to life-limited children and families and those experiencing the sudden death of a child. Our therapy services are child and family focused, utilising the medium of art, drama, play or other creative techniques, addressing the psychological challenges associated with life-limiting conditions and issues of loss and grief.

This is an opportunity to work holistically with a multi-disciplinary team of psychosocial professionals, with a diverse caseload, providing assessment, individual and group therapy programs with children and/or family members. The post holder will utilise skills, knowledge and expertise to provide advice, education, signposting, supervision and support to staff, families, schools and other professionals. 

About you

This role requires previous experience of working as an Arts or Play therapist in a health or social care environment, as part of a multi-disciplinary team. You should have significant experience of working with children and young people, including those with disabilities, those experiencing loss and grief, and chronic or acute trauma.

We are looking for a therapist skilled in working closely with parents/carers, providing clinical expertise and suggesting specific approaches/strategies, and advising other team members in MDT case discussions. We require a strong understanding of safeguarding.

Please see the attached job description for more information about this opportunity at Shooting Star Children’s Hospices.

What we offer

In return you will receive a competitive salary along with a range of benefits, which include:

Pension scheme

• NHS Pension Scheme (for eligible employees) or our stakeholder pension scheme, with up to 7% employer contributions

Annual leave

• 27 days plus Bank Holidays rising with length of service

Contractual benefits

• Generous sick pay scheme
• Enhanced maternity, adoption, and paternity leave pay
• Flexible working arrangements
• Death in service benefits
• Reimbursed professional membership fees
• Eye care
• Employee referral scheme
• Blue Light discount card

Health and wellbeing

• Employee Assistance Programme
• Occupational Health
• Cycle to work scheme
• Mental Health First Aiders
• Nutritionally balanced meals at Christopher’s (free for employees) and free fruit at our Hampton site

Safeguarding

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expect all our staff to share this commitment. Employment is subject to receipt of satisfactory references and a DBS check.

In addition, an enhanced/standard disclosure will be required for this role. Our recruitment checks, induction and ongoing support and supervision reflect our commitment to safeguarding the families we support.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

Shooting Star Children’s Hospice is committed to inclusion and diversity in everything we do. We know that getting things right is critical for us to live our organisation’s values: Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Diversity and Excellence.

We are always trying to improve our way of working to be more inclusive and equal. Our vision is for Shooting Star Children’s Hospice to be a place where people of all backgrounds, groups and communities feel welcomed to work and volunteer.

Please contact Marion Barton  marion.barton@shootingstar.org.uk  if you have any questions about this role.

Closing Date: 30/7/2025 

Download full:https://www.shootingstar.org.uk/app/uploads/2025/06/Creative-Therapist-BANK-JD-June-2025.pdf