Clinical/Counselling Psychologist or Psychological Therapist
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
We are looking for an innovative, motivated and enthusiastic psychological therapist to work with us in the Brent Integrated Psychology & Psychotherapy Service (BIPPS). This would be an excellent opportunity for a recently-qualified Clinical/Counselling Psychologist or psychological therapist to join a supportive and diverse team of psychological therapists with opportunities to consolidate their training as well as develop their professional competencies.
The post-holder will work across two of the psychological therapies pathways within BIPPS - Complex Mental Health (CMH) and Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) - who support people aged 18+ who are struggling with chronic mood and anxiety disorders, comorbid personality difficulties and complex trauma. This is an exciting opportunity to join a team committed to improving the lives of the population we serve and we are looking to recruit someone who is equally committed to supporting people with their recovery.
Main duties of the job
In their role within the service, the post-holder will have the opportunity to work directly with a range of clients with diverse and complex mental health difficulties as well as represent the psychological needs of our service users indirectly through their presence at MDTs and other multi-professional contexts. Under specialist supervision, the post-holder will offer evidence-based interventions and enhance the service's treatment offers through ongoing training and development.
In addition to the delivery of these evidence-based interventions, the post-holder will also be responsible for providing clinical support and supervision to colleagues in the team offering psychosocial interventions within the secondary-care stepped-care approach. There will also be additional opportunities to offer training across the team in these interventions.
The post-holder will have a strong commitment to recovery principles, multi-disciplinary working, service user involvement, and working with people who are cautious about engaging with mental health services.
The post-holder will be based across sites in Brent, based on the needs of the client, including inpatient wards, GP surgeries, other community service bases and patients' homes.
About us
CNWL is recognised locally, nationally and internationally for providing high quality, innovative healthcare. We aim to employ in line with our values, our experts are frequently called upon to contribute to national health strategy and policy, and many models of our care have been adapted for use in other countries. With us, you will get:
* A Trust committed to staff personal development, with a trust wide culture change and leadership programme that has staff wellbeing at its core.
* An opportunity to work for one of the top 10 NHS employers
As a Trust we are committed to investing in our staff through a range of initiatives. Psychological professions staff are able to access a range of trust-wide CPD initiatives.
As part of our commitment to address inequalities in healthcare, we are keen to hear from applicants with lived experience relevant to the diverse communities we work with, and from those with particular skills in understanding and promoting anti-discrimination associated with protected characteristics.
The Trust has the following active Staff Networks: BAME Staff Network, Disabled Employees Network (DEN+), Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Staff Network (LGBT+), Carers at Work Network, Lived Experience of Mental Health Issues Stigma Transformation (LEMHIST) Network and Women's Network. The post-holder will accordingly be supported to access and contribute to the work of any of these networks as a member or ally.
Job responsibilities
Clinical responsibilities:
1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team 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 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 based upon evidence of 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 evidence-based psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options considering 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 standard 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 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.
8. 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.
9. To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
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 both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
11. To deliver and co-deliver brief interventions, for people with complex mental health presentations.
12. To provide time-limited case management for a caseload of service users.
13. To be involved in co-delivering structured group-based treatments, e.g. MBT or DBT groups, as indicated.
14. To be aware of and to embed principles of the trauma-informed approach within the CMH pathway.
Teaching, training, and supervision
1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
2. To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical psychology and/or the service as agreed with the professional psychology manager.
3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work as appropriate.
4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of trainee and assistant clinical psychologists.
5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate.
6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
Management, recruitment, policy and service development
1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service valuation and audit.
2. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
3. To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.
4. To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists.
Research and service evaluation
1. To use theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
2. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
3. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
General
1. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the postholders professional and service manager(s).
2. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop 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.
3. To maintain 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, the Health & Care Professions Council, and CNWL Trust policies and procedures.
4. 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.
Please see the job description for further details on the roles and responsibilities.
Person Specification
Training and Qualifications
* Doctoral-level training in clinical psychology (or equivalent qualification) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
* Further training relevant to the care of clients with complex mental health difficulties, particularly trauma-focused therapies.
* Professional registration with HCPC.
* Specialist training in a trauma-focused therapy such as TF-CBT, EMDR, or Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). Post-qualification specialist training in evidence-based psychological therapies for people with complex emotional needs/personality disorder such as DBT or MBT.
* Accreditation through BABCP as a CBT Practitioner.
Experience
* Experience of working in secondary care mental health services with clients presenting with comorbidity, including chronic mood disorders, personality difficulties and trauma.
* Experience of carrying out psychological assessment, developing theory-driven psychological formulation and delivering evidence-based psychological interventions to clients presenting with complex mental health difficulties.
* Experience of working with clients from socially- and culturally-diverse backgrounds.
* Active participation in service planning and delivery.
* Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team.
* Experience of teaching, training and/or providing clinical supervision to other mental health staff or psychological therapists.
* Experience of the application of psychology and psychological therapy in different social and cultural contexts.
Knowledge and Skills
* Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
* Ability to establish and maintain a psychotherapeutic relationship with clients presenting with complex needs, particularly those with chronic emotional difficulties, complex trauma and comorbid personality difficulties.
* Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. psychosis, personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
* High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
* Formal training in supervision of other psychologists/psychological therapists.
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.
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
£51,883 to £58,544 a year per annum inc HCAS
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