Careers

About the Organisation

Every day, Life Without Barriers provides support and care to children and young people, as we work collaboratively with families, carers, and communities, to ensure they have the environment they deserve to grow. With a focus on ensuring safety and respect, this is an opportunity to make a positive and meaningful difference in these young lives and help pave a brighter future.

Life Without Barriers is a leading social purpose organisation of 8,000 employees working in more than 500 communities across Australia. We support children, young people and families, people with disability, older people and people with mental illness. We work with people who are homeless and refugees and asylum seekers. Join a community of people dedicated to breaking down barriers.

We want to employ people who reflect the diversity of our clients to ensure we can support each client's individual needs and wants. We encourage people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background and people with disability to apply.

About the Role

We are currently seeking a skilled and enthusiastic Therapeutic Specialist to be a part of our Clinical Services team and to provide high quality clinical support to LWB clients. This team is led by a Clinical Psychologist with over 10 years’ experience in supporting children and families in family-based care and residential care. While predominately metro based, we do have young people and families in regional areas.  

This position is being offered as permanent full time and can be based in Unley. This exciting position would suit someone with sound therapeutic skills who enjoys working with children or adults. The types of clients that seek services from our therapeutic specialists include;

• Children in therapeutic foster care who present with challenging behavioural and emotional issues due to their trauma experiences and require therapeutic support with emotional regulation, social skills, and trauma processing.
• Children in residential care with disability or trauma background who needs support around transitioning to independence or into foster care placement.
• Children with disabilities including Intellectual Disability and Autism who receive funding through the NDIS positive behaviour support planning & specialist behavioural intervention support, and therapeutic support
• Children in need of the cognitive and educational assessments

In addition to the direct therapeutic work with children and young people, other opportunities include.

• Support to foster carers around behaviour management from a therapeutic parenting framework.
• Consultation with residential support teams to provide guidance on therapeutic care for young people in a residential setting
• Being part of a supportive and dynamic Child Youth and Family team
• Opportunity to work alongside our Living Arts program to develop creative therapies.

You will have a sound knowledge of child development (including normal development, neurobiology of trauma, attachment difficulties, disability and developmental delays), excellent interpersonal skills and be able to work collaboratively within a care team.  
 
Skills & Experience 

• Tertiary qualifications in Psychology and a full registration as a Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia is preferred, however we welcome anyone with a qualification in Social Work, Occupational Therapy or Mental Health Nursing with current registration with the relevant professional body to apply.
• Provisional psychologists are encouraged to apply, we are able to provide supervision for clinical endorsement
• Demonstrated experience in working with children and/or adult clients who exhibit challenging behaviours.
• Demonstrated experience in administration of a range of cognitive and adaptive behaviour assessment tools.
• Ability to work in partnership with multi-disciplinary teams.
• Effective time management and organisational skills.
• Ability to use initiative and think laterally and strategically as well as well-developed problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated interpersonal skills and strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to maintain a high degree of confidentiality.
• Ability to meet deadlines and Understanding of a commitment to the principles of EEO, Safety, Cultural Diversity and Ethical Practice
• Current Drivers License

 
Successful candidates will be required to clear probity checks including National Criminal History Record Check and Working with Children Check (where relevant to the role).

 
Benefits

• Salary Packaging providing tax benefits available for living and entertainment expenses
• Diverse and inclusive organisation
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Life Without Barriers offers a dedicated After-Hours Service (AHS) for all NISS and Child Youth and Family programs. AHS ensures efficient responses to after-hours events that cannot wait until the next business day, relieving our front-line staff from on-call duties and significantly improving their work-life balance.
• Fitness Passport, which entitles you to visit a multitude of health facilities, whenever you like and without being limited to just once fitness centre, gym or pool.  

 
How to Apply

Include your resume and covering letter in one document, click ‘Apply’ and follow the prompts. For any enquiries including persons with disability that require adjustments, contact recruitment@lwb.org.au with the subject heading ‘Therapeutic Specialist – Unley’.

Applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as applications may be reviewed prior to the closing date; and as such the closing date is subject to change without notice. Current application closing date is midnight 13th April 2025. 

Candidates with disabilities who require adjustments to the recruitment process or the application form in an alternate format can visit https://www.lwb.org.au/careers/ for information on our access and inclusion work and how to contact us directly.