The aim of this role is to provide a psychology service to adults with a Learning Disability as a part of the wider Multi-Disciplinary Team. This will include providing psychological assessment, formulation and interventions directly and indirectly to service users, their families and wider systems. The post holder will also provide teaching, training, consultation and supervision to the wider team to facilitate a psychologically informed approach to service users and contribute to the ongoing training and development strategy. The post holder will supervise trainee and assistant psychologists and may supervise the psychological aspects of MDT work. The post holder will engage in audit, policy and service development and research.
Main duties of the job
1. To provide highly specialist psychological assessments for people referred to the service, including assessing people's eligibility for a learning disability service. The psychologist will be expected to deliver services based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members, the MDT and others involved in the client's care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client's psychological, mental health or behavioural problems, including autistic spectrum disorders, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. To carry out Functional Assessments and formulate Positive Behaviour Support plans in addition to carrying out systemic work with care homes and families.
4. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
5. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
6. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
7. To provide highly specialist psychological advice guidance, and consultation to other Professionals, contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
8. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
9. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of their admission.
Person Specification
EDUCATION
Essential
* Doctoral (or equivalent) level training in Clinical/ Counselling psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS.
Desirable
* Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
* Pre or post-qualification training in a relevant area, such as systemic psychotherapy or Positive Behaviour Support
EXPERIENCE
Essential
* Experience of psychometric assessment/ assessment of learning disability.
* Experience of Positive Behaviour Support and functional assessment.
* Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical 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.
* Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours experience of working in Learning Disability services, across a range of abilities, including service users presenting with mental health problems, autistic spectrum disorders, and other challenging behaviours.
* Understanding and experience of adapting communication and therapeutic approaches to work with people with learning disabilities.
Desirable
* Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
* Experience of the application of clinical/ counselling psychology in different cultural contexts.
* Experience of work as a psychologist in community settings.
* Experience of working with interpreters.
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS
Essential
* Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
* Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
* Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
* Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
* Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
* Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
* Experience and knowledge of behavioural assessment and intervention methods in people with challenging behaviour.
Desirable
* Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc). High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
* Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
OTHER
Essential
* Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multimedia materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
* Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
Desirable
* Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
* Car driver and access to use of a car.
Employer details
Employer name
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
Address
The Kingswood center
Honeypot Lane
Brent
NW9 9QY
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