Job details
Salary range: £58,972 per annum
Work location: Countywide with office base at: Union Street, Oxford, OX4 1JP
You will be required to work countywide attending to need.
Hours per week: 37 - we will also consider 30 hours per week
Contract type: Permanent
Vetting requirements: This role is subject to a Criminal Records Check
Closing date: Monday 1st July 2024
Interview date: Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th July 2024
About us
You will be joining our highly regarded multi-disciplinary Clinical Team led by a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. Together we strive towards a creative, dynamic, and evidence-based approach that strongly draws on trauma-informed, developmental, and systemic models. As a team we support each other in working in what is an often-complex area through regular team meetings, supervision spaces, and monthly reflective practice facilitated by the highly regarded Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Family Therapist, Arlene Vetere. Team members are supported in their development, and we have allocated funding for CPD. As a team we will also work closely with the clinical psychology doctoral training at Oxford University developing opportunities for research and service innovation, and supervising trainee placements.
About the role
How about joining our new Community Family Clinic initiative as part of a vibrant and innovative team composed of Clinical Psychologists, a Counselling Psychologist, Family Therapists, a Consultant Psychiatrist, Psychological Family practitioners, an Occupational Therapist and highly experienced outdoor specialists?
We are expanding the offer to children, young people and families in Oxfordshire with an innovative Community Family Clinic initiative where you will be working with other Clinical Psychologists, Family Therapists and Psychological Family Practioners. The Clinical Team is a highly regarded therapeutic team placed within Oxfordshire County Council. This is a team with a strong value base who will fully support you. We want people in our team to thrive in what they do, so they can be the best professionals supporting the children and families we work with.
Oxfordshire County Council really values the role Clinical Psychologists can play in supporting families during times of crises. Over the past eight years we have more than quadrupled in numbers, developed very interesting tools, published papers and worked closely with colleagues in the UK and Europe. Our outdoor therapeutic centre with mountain bikes, canoes, camping equipment and Land rovers located by the river at a central Oxford location offers an opportunity for truly innovative work. We are also very lucky to have monthly reflective practice with Arlene Vetere who also offers systemic supervision to our trainees. In addition, Oxfordshire County Council is an outstanding employer and offers very generous work conditions (agenda for change salary and a generous pension and relocation package amongst others).
We work closely together with the Clinical Psychology Doctoral training at Oxford University and supervise trainees in their placements as well as research work.
In this specific role, you will be working as part of our Clinical Team working with, and alongside, the Family Solutions Service. The FSS consists of the Family Help and Statutory Teams who provide support to vulnerable children and their birth families to reduce safeguarding concerns and improve life chances for children aged between 0 and 19. In this role, you will be leading the Clinical Team input in one of the three localities leading a team composed by a family therapist and a psychological practioner. You will be supported by 2 other 8b Clinical Psychologists who lead the other localities as well as by the whole if the Clinical Team which operates united, independent of the areas people are allocated to work. The Clinical Team has a strong team culture and team members are very supportive of each other. Our primary aim is to support children, parents and families to address issues which might contribute to family breakdown and whenever possible support families to remain together.
About you
This role offers you extensive opportunity to develop your clinical skills by working with a varied range of needs and experiences, including working with families, children, and young people across a broad age range, and supporting staff teams. You will be able to draw upon and develop a wide range of skills in offering innovative interventions to help meet the diverse and often complex needs of this population, including providing specialist psychological assessments and interventions that draw on multiple models (such as systemic thinking, Video Interaction Guidance, MBT, trauma-informed approaches, and cognitive behavioral therapy). As part of the wider Clinical team, you will continue to explore how to meet the needs of this population in a flexible way that combines creativity and innovation with drawing upon, and extending, the existing evidence base. This therefore offers a great opportunity for not only supporting the young people and families that we work with, but also taking a leadership role in extending and innovating practice in this area. This includes the opportunity to build on the team’s research and publication in this area of work. We have published two papers related to our learnings related to consultations with teams and residential children’s homes. Most recently we have contributed with a chapter on a upcoming book on the issue of safety and protection from danger within residential children’s homes.
We would also be keen to meet with you to explore any specific skills and experience that you might bring and wish to further develop in your role.
Rewards and benefits
1. Culture of flexible working
2. Technology to support agile working where role permits
3. Up to 33 days holiday p.a. plus bank holidays
4. Option to ‘buy’ additional holiday
5. Employee Assistance Programme including access to health and wellbeing support
6. Membership of the Local Government contributory pension scheme, with an employer’s contribution of up to 19.9%
7. Enhanced family friendly policies
8. Local and national discounts for shopping and travel
9. Great learning and development opportunities to support your ongoing development