Job summary
We are recruiting a Principal Practitioner Psychologist to provide a clinical service for our working age acute wards and crisis team in Eastbourne and Seaford, and professional leadership for our acute and urgent care psychology and psychological therapy services across East Sussex. The service is well established and this would be an excellent opportunity to develop your clinical and leadership expertise alongside a team of committed colleagues in psychology, psychological therapy and other disciplines. It is open to people seeking promotion from a lower banding or looking for a new challenge at principal level.
Main duties of the job
To provide a professional or clinical leadership role within the clinical service/ team, providing a high quality, specialist applied psychology service to clients, their families or carers, where there are highly complex presentations. In addition to be responsible for the supervision and governance of a group of psychologists and psychological therapists with the specified service and to support psychological practice within the team through consultation, supervision, formulation and training. To utilise research skills for audit, service development and research within the area served by the team/service.
About us
This is an opportunity to join an organisation which sets a high priority on the development of services which are responsive to service user and carer's views and to work with dedicated and supportive colleagues. The trust is committed to strong integrated, collaborative leadership between managers and clinicians.
Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is a leading teaching and research mental health trust. We were granted teaching status in 2008 in recognition of our research background and our links with the Brighton and Sussex Medical School and other academic institutions. Currently we are in the top 12 mental health trusts in terms of research participants. Applicants with an interest in research will be welcomed.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The successful candidate will ensure that the multi-disciplinary teams have access to a psychological opinion, and contribute to the development of psychological thinking, understanding and interventions/ approaches within the multi-disciplinary teams. As well as offering consultation, assessments (ideally including neuropsychological assessment) and focused, short-term individual and group interventions, they will contribute to the training and clinical supervision of other staff and offer reflective practice opportunities.
The successful post holder must be flexible, confident and thrive on working within a multidisciplinary context. Experience or specialist skills in working with specific conditions, such as psychosis or personality disorders would be useful, as would a systemic or psychodynamic understanding of teams. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust is committed to the delivery of high quality, safe, effective, and therapeutic adult acute services based upon innovation and evidence-based practice.
Please see job description for further details.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
1. Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology [or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 or outside the UK] as approved by the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
2. Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HCPC)
Knowledge/Experience
Essential
3. Significant assessed experience of working as a qualified psychologist
4. Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
5. Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan
6. Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology.
7. Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group.
8. Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups
9. Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies
10. Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC
11. Formal training in supervision of other psychologists