Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist/Psychological Therapist
We are looking for a highly skilled, innovative, and experienced Principal Clinical, Counselling Psychologist or Psychological Therapist, to provide clinical and professional leadership to the Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) pathway.
The CEN pathway is an innovative and developing multidisciplinary team for individuals who require secondary care community mental health support across the boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley, and Bromley.
The CEN service provides focused, therapeutic interventions to adults who require enhanced care and treatment for Complex Emotional Needs. The service is for people diagnosed with personality disorder and/or complex trauma and who are often referred to specialist inpatient services. The focus is on supporting service-users to achieve stability and wellbeing in the community.
The CEN service forms part of a planned and integrated whole system approach to service users' care, delivered in conjunction with Acute and Crisis, Secondary Care Mental Health Services, and other specialist services. The postholder will support the development of the service, in collaboration with the operational lead and Consultant Psychologist.
Main duties of the job
The postholder will provide skilled and experienced clinical leadership to the multi-disciplinary team and work closely with the operational lead to oversee the provision and development of the service, including presenting data to commissioners and other key stakeholders.
The postholder will ensure the systematic provision of a high-quality specialist psychological therapies and psychologically-informed practice. To supervise and support the psychological assessment and therapy provided by other psychological therapists, trainees and other clinicians who provide psychologically-based care and treatment. The post-holder will ensure psychologically and trauma-informed care planning in collaboration with multidisciplinary and multi-agency colleagues.
To provide consultation and reflective practice and incident debriefs to the service and to facilitate team working, psychologically informed practice, trauma-informed care and appropriate treatment pathways to optimise service user journey and experience across service transitions.
The post will also involve close organisational liaison with other teams within Oxleas and other agencies, including consultation on the management of service-users with complex needs.
The postholder will be expected to work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/teams.
About us
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children's centres, schools and people's homes.
We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
* We're Kind
* We're Respectful
* We Listen
* We Care
Job responsibilities
Management responsibilities
1. To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available within the service area whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients.
2. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service.
3. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees, qualified clinical/ counselling psychologists, and CBT Therapists.
4. To provide clinical leadership to the CEN MDT.
5. To be an authorised signatory for staff related expenses.
6. To contribute to the overall development and functioning of the service.
Leadership responsibilities
1. To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists and trainee psychological therapists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
2. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to qualified clinical and/or counselling psychologists attached to the service.
3. To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the service for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.
4. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology as appropriate.
5. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and postgraduate training and clinical supervision.
6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
Clinical responsibilities
1. As a Principal Psychological Therapist working in the CEN service, to provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 and others involved in the clients care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
7. To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management, including responsibilities within the policies and clinical duties to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children.
9. To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care. This will require being able to convey this to clients, families and colleagues with a range of understanding and knowledge so will require the ability to be flexible, adaptive and simple but yet retain a sophisticated understanding and approach. This communication is likely to take place in situations which are highly emotive and with people who may also have concurrent and/or associated physical health conditions.
10. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.
Research responsibilities
1. To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the teams operational policies, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high quality care.
2. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
3. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
4. To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.
Communication responsibilities
1. To maintain registration with appropriate professional body (HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP).
2. To ensure the development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
3. To ensure the development and articulation of best practice in psychological practice within the service area and contribute across the service by exercising the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.
4. To maintain and promulgate the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society, Health & Care Professions Council and Trust policies and procedures.
5. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
Person Specification
* Registered with professional body or regulatory body as appropriate to psychological therapy discipline i.e., HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP.
* Considerable experience of working as a clinical or counselling psychologist or psychological therapist, in relevant settings and services, e.g. secondary care adult mental health, acute or crisis services.
* Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
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