Principal Practitioner Psychologist or Psychological Therapist
NHS AfC: Band 8b
Main area Psychological Practitioner Grade NHS AfC: Band 8b Contract 23 months (Fixed term 23 months) Hours Full time - 37.5 hours per week Job ref 334-CLI-6909504
Site Maudsley Hospital Town London Salary £70,387 - £80,465 per annum Incl. of HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 28/01/2025 23:59
South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.
We are committed to providing high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’.
We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone’s potential as change makers.
The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.
Our Values
We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I’m going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you’ll be part of something special.
As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.
Job overview
We are seeking an experienced Psychological Practitioner to support an innovative project in the roll-out of trauma-informed approaches (TIA) in our working-age adult acute inpatient wards. Many people coming into our inpatient environments have a history of trauma and the experience of being in hospital during a mental health crisis can itself be incredibly traumatic. We are committed to ensuring our wards take a trauma-informed approach to clinical care and to staff support. The successful candidate will work as part of a small MDT supporting this inpatient work across all 4 South London & The Maudsley boroughs.
This post will be responsible for delivering the strategy for this work in collaboration with stakeholders from the professional MDTs, service users, carers and local community. They will provide supervision and leadership to local ward staff in each borough to build on work already being done and introduce new approaches. The project will support our strategic priorities around anti-racism, building a culture of trust with the communities we serve and providing outstanding mental health care. Our successful candidate will have extensive experience and skills in working with adults receiving care for severe mental health problems and an advanced understanding of the theory and application of trauma-informed approaches. They will have excellent leadership skills in engaging and working with large groups of diverse stakeholders.
Main duties of the job
This role will support stakeholder engagement and implementation of the roll-out of trauma-informed approaches and the further development of a trauma-informed culture across our adult acute inpatient wards.
The post-holder will support and plan the delivery of a highly specialist consultation service providing expert clinical input, supervision and guidance around TIA. They will be part of a small, centrally based MDT which will in-reach to the teams in each of borough’s acute wards augmenting the TIA work being done and supporting the further development of TIA and culture.
This post-holder will work alongside all stakeholders including peer workers, service-users, medical, nursing, therapies, social work and psychological professions leads. The strategy for this work will draw on and reflect guidance, research and best practice around trauma-informed approaches across the UK. The post-holder will work closely with leads for the Patient and Carer Race Equity Framework (PCREF) across the boroughs to ensure the strategy encompasses our commitment to anti-racism.
Working for our organisation
This post will sit within the Corporate Psychology & Psychotherapy team at South London & The Maudsley. This small, central team provides support, governance and leadership for Psychological Professionals and staff support across the trust. It is a diverse and experienced team with a warm and supportive culture. The Trauma-Informed Approaches for Adult Inpatient Team is a new initiative and will reach out across the trust and work with multiple ward-based teams within each of the 4 boroughs covered by South London & The Maudsley – Lambeth, Lewisham, Croydon and Southwark.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Key Responsibilities:
Clinical and Client Care
* To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the systematic provision of a highly specialist psychological services including offering consultation and supervision, to deliver strategy around the implementation of trauma-informed approaches in inpatient wards.
* To provide highly specialist psychological assessments, formulations and interventions for clients with severe mental illness in an inpatient setting.
* To provide culturally appropriate trauma-informed psychological interventions with carers or families and with staff when required.
* To assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
* To provide reports, including relevant formulation, opinion and interventions, in order to inform referrers and, where appropriate, service users and their families.
* To select and deliver evidence-based specialist trauma-informed approaches and therapeutic interventions, drawing from a spectrum of ideas and models, monitoring outcome and modifying and adapting interventions as necessary, based on the highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, couple, family or group.
* To promote psychological support for carers (or families as appropriate) of referred clients.
Responsibilities for team or service clinical functioning
* To communicate and implement a trauma-informed strategy for work on the ward in conjunction with the ward MDT.
* To co-ordinate (and chair) meetings for the service to ensure effective functioning and review when appropriate.
* To take a lead in ensuring a psychologically and psychotherapeutically informed framework for trauma-informed clinical work on the wards.
* To take a lead in developing the team or service’s delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.
* To be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.
* To advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients and in trauma-informed approaches.
* To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
* To liaise with all stakeholders including staff, MDT, service users, families and carers and the wider community.
Policy and service development
* To implement policies and procedures in own area of work.
* To identify any aspects of trauma-informed care on the wards which could be improved and propose changes to practices or procedures that affect wards and may also affect other services.
* To initiate and implement service development projects, as agreed with clinical/professional lead.
* To participate in the ongoing implementation of new initiatives (e.g. national guidelines) across relevant services.
* To lead the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering trauma-informed services which meet the needs of local communities.
Care or management of resources
* To take care of, and use carefully, the Trust’s equipment and physical resources.
* To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed.
* To monitor and advise clients on the safe use of materials and processes.
* To ensure adequate confidential and safe storage for artefacts produced during the therapy process in line with professional guidelines.
* To be responsible for obtaining, storing and maintaining all necessary materials and equipment for the provision of therapy in work setting within budgetary constraints.
Management and supervision
* To provide clinical leadership to more junior psychological practitioners and other professionals, as appropriate.
* To be responsible for the allocation and/or clinical supervision of the work of more junior psychological practitioners.
* To supervise trainees within own area of specialism having completed the relevant training.
* To contribute to the appraisal of more junior psychological therapists as appropriate.
* To contribute to the recruitment of more junior psychological practitioners as appropriate.
* To provide professional and clinical supervision to more junior psychological practitioners, trainees and honoraries for all aspects of their work.
* To provide management supervision to less senior psychological practitioners.
* To provide supervision for trauma-informed approaches and the clinical and psychological work of other multi-disciplinary staff as appropriate.
Teaching and Training
* To support the development of and deliver a training package on trauma-informed approaches to MDT staff in inpatient units.
* To undertake occasional teaching and training of pre and post-qualification psychological practitioners and specialised training to other professions as appropriate.
* To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in trauma-informed care and psychology and by implementing knowledge gained in practice.
* To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.
Record-keeping and Information Governance
* To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.
* To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has leadership responsibility.
Research and development
* To carry out and supervise the evaluation of the TIA project including communication and dissemination of learning both within and external to the trust.
* To initiate, undertake, support and supervise regular complex service evaluation and audits.
* To initiate/carry out appropriate research.
* To initiate and implement the development of outcome measurement and assessment and assist other staff in the implementation of same.
Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development
* To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior psychological practitioners according to professional and Trust guidelines.
* To maintain own Continuing Professional Development in line with registration body and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and the professional Standards for Continuing Professional Development.
* To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies and particularly as relevant to TIA.
* To comply with registration body Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics/Standards of Proficiency.
General
* To travel to ward and community settings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.
* To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow trust policies relating to its management.
* To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations and to support others involved in such situations.
* To work flexibly which may include offering some occasional commitment to meeting with ward staff outside of 9-5 working hours within the overall Job Plan.
* To work closely with Corporate Psychology and Psychotherapy to ensure consistent and timely delivery of staff support within their area across all disciplines. Contributing to the development of the staff support offer in line with relevant quality improvement projects.
Person specification
Qualifications
* To have undertaken a recognised qualification in one of the core mental health professions, e.g. psychiatric nursing, clinical psychology, medicine, social work and occupational therapy OR to have equivalent relevant experience and demonstrable competence to work in the mental health field in the NHS.
* Entry-level qualification in applied psychological therapy/mental health/social welfare profession or equivalent and demonstrable practice in this field (professional Doctorate, or combination of MSc plus PG Diploma level/supervised practice/additional training) that has been accepted for the purposes of professional registration.
* Registered with professional body as appropriate to discipline.
* Additional training beyond entry-level qualification in a specialised area of psychological practice through formal post-qualification training (PG Diploma or equivalent), OR a combination of specialist short courses and an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice–based learning in a specialist area of clinical practice, assessed by a registered body and/or an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma or higher.
* Specific training in trauma-informed approaches / trauma-informed care.
Experience
* Evidence of having worked as a clinical specialist under supervision in adult mental health.
* Experience of carrying out post-qualification research, audit or service evaluation projects.
* Experience of working with, and addressing issues of, diversity, including experience of working within a multicultural framework.
* Experience of offering psychological consultation and supervision to MDT colleagues.
* Evidence of having worked in adult acute inpatient settings.
* Lived experience of mental health problems or of being a carer.
Knowledge
* Advanced knowledge of the theory and practice of trauma-informed care.
* Advanced knowledge of the theory of psychological therapy and its therapeutic application.
* Knowledge of factors affecting acceptability and accessibility of mental health care.
Skills
* To communicate the ethos and culture of trauma-informed care to different professional and lay audiences.
* Advanced skills in professional supervision; including skills for offering live supervision of multi-disciplinary colleagues.
* Advanced skills in working with a number of clients and systems together, managing the highly complex emotional relationships within and between the component parts of the systems in ways, which maximise the potential for therapeutic outcomes and culture change.
* Advanced skills in providing teaching and training to other professional groups.
Abilities
* Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to effective team functioning and holding team roles.
* Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations such as working with victims of abuse or trauma, or with people who engage in severe self-harming or aggressive behaviour.
The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights.
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