Job summary
There is an opportunity for you to join our team at Evergreen in Luton, Bedfordshire on a 12 Month Fixed Contract (Maternity Cover).
We currently work with 12-18-year-old young people and their families across Bedfordshire and parts of the East Of England.
Evergreen is an 8 bedded GAU which opened in February 2023. We are tremendously proud of the Unit whose design, ethos, staffing were all co-produced with Children and parents from across BLMK.
Young people present with eating disorders, psychosis, OCD, and emerging and emotional regulation difficulties. The young people are in varying stages of recovery and can be dynamic and resourceful. We actively encourage them to help us enhance their experience of care. We have an eclectic and energetic staff group and are seeking a candidate who has an interest in developing our current service and delivering our clinical care in new ways. We pride ourselves in being a learning centre and believe in the development of our staff team through weekly academic sessions, regular training, reflective practice and complex case discussions.
This supports our strong team ethos on cross-discipline learning, evidence based practice and being reflexive practitioners.
Main duties of the job
The Clinical Psychology Service provides formulation driven, therapeutic assessments in order to facilitate an understanding of the young person's strengths and needs. From the assessment, time limited interventions are offered both directly and through consultation with members of the wider multi-disciplinary team, medical, nursing, family therapy, occupational therapy, art therapies, social work and education. A range of therapeutic orientations is represented in the wider team including psycho-dynamic, systemic and cognitive behavioral perspectives.
Psychological input begins at admission and is focused on enabling young people to return to their community as soon as possible.
About us
Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations
Job description
Job responsibilities
You will join the psychology team which consists of one Assistant Psychologist and Trainee Psychologist.
There will be considerable opportunities for developing your clinical leadership skills, sharing your clinical expertise and developing your capacity to enjoy multi-disciplinary team working. We would value your input to our quality improvement programme, and the development of psychological skills within the wider team. We are committed to staff development and reflective practice, with considerable resources in the Team and wider trust to support this.
You will have some experience of working with adolescents presenting with complex mental health presentations. We are seeking a candidate who is interested in neuropsychological assessment, multidisciplinary team working and targeted psychological interventions, especially third-wave CBT. We welcome informal enquiries and would enjoy showing you around Evergreen and talking to you about our work.
Person Specification
Training Qualification
Essential
1. Three year Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, covering all care groups. Training in at least two therapeutic approaches and basic neuropsychological training.
Desirable
2. Relevant specialist training or demonstrable experience in CBT, Child Neuropsychology or Systemic Work.
3. Clinical supervision training for Doctoral trainees.
Experience
Essential
4. At least one year post-qualification experience as a Clinical Psychologist which includes relevant experience in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
5. Experience of providing a direct clinical service with children, adolescents and their families with severe and complex mental health difficulties including specialist assessment, psychological formulation of problems and intervention.
6. Experience of completing neuropsychological assessments with adolescents with severe and complex mental health needs. Able to use a range of assessments such as WISC, Connors, ABAS and ADOS.
7. Experience of using a range of outcome measures within a CAMHS context that may aid assessment and formulation information for a young person.
8. Experience of developing and delivering specialist training programmes and/or supervision of other staff groups.
9. Experience of participating in audit, evaluation and quality improvement.
10. Experience of contributing to policy and service development.
11. Additional relevant clinical knowledge and skills acquired through formal training, long or short courses, formal supervision (individual and/or group), structured self study or experience (or a combination of these) to an appropriate level demonstrated by certification, documented supervision logs, management appraisal documentation and/or assessment at interview. This will include supervision training.
12. Experience of clinically supervising the work of colleagues (Assistants and/or trainee psychologists, MDT colleagues) and thereby managing a Clinical Caseload of direct and indirect work.
13. Experience in applying Leadership skills to drive forward individual clinical care plans and service projects (for example quality initiatives, service development plans)
Desirable
14. Work in a multi-cultural setting, including working with interpreters.
15. Some knowledge of and experience in offering DBT with young people and/or their families.
16. Experience in clinically supervising junior psychologists.
17. Experience of delivering psychological group programs to young people in tier 4 settings.
Knowledge & Skills
Essential
18. Able to supervise trainee and assistant psychologists and members of other staff groups.
19. Communication & Relationship skills: Able to provide & receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere, in a range of relationships and settings. Able to use highly specialist skills of empathy to overcome barriers to understanding and acceptance.
20. Analytical & judgemental skills: Able to draw upon a broad theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of highly complex facts or situations to arrive at appropriate formulations. Able to compare and select from a range of treatment options, based on formulation.
21. Planning and organisational skills: Able to plan, organise and prioritise own workload.
22. Physical skills: Basic keyboard skills.
23. Able to record and report on as required clinical information. Competent in use of basic IT packages - word processing, e-mail and internet.
24. Research & Guidance: Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis. Up to date knowledge of psychological research and national guidance relevant to the client groups. Knowledge of legislation and its implications for clinical practice with the client groups.
25. Cultural awareness: Aware of the potential impact of discrimination & disadvantage on mental health.
26. Flexibility: Able to be flexible and adapt approach according to need. Capacity to work effectively as a member of a multi-disciplinary team.
Desirable
27. Physical skills: Driving.
28. Information resources: Competent use of other IT packages PowerPoint, Excel and Access.
29. Cultural competence: Able to provide a cultural competent service.
30. Flexibility: Able to innovate on the basis of theoretical knowledge.
personal
Essential
31. Able to contain and work with organisational stress and able to hold the stress of others.
32. Able to apply reflective skills during exposure to distressing and highly emotional situations, in order to contain and support the wider team whilst agreeing immediate and longer-term care plans.
33. Physical effort: Able to sit in constrained positions for a substantial proportion of working time. Mental effort: Able to concentrate intensely for a substantial proportion of working time, during client contact, teaching/supervision sessions, team meetings, preparing written work etc. Emotional effort: Able to manage effectively frequent exposure to highly distressing/highly emotional circumstances and exposure to traumatic circumstances. Values: Respectful approach to service users, families, carers, colleagues and other professionals. Willing to negotiate and can handle confrontation effectively and professionally.
other
Essential
34. Able to work to professional guidelines. Must be capable of accountability for own work, of autonomous clinical practice, of being guided by precedent and of working towards defined results.