Job summary
The Northants Personality Disorder Hub is a countywide specialist service that works to enhance understanding of personality disorder and promote the delivery of effective interventions across community and inpatient services. The service provides a Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) programme, DBT to adolescents (DBT-A), leads on the delivery of Structured Clinical Management (SCM) across general secondary mental health services and delivers numerous Understanding and Managing Emotions (U&ME) groups.
This is a split role across the DBT-A and U&ME sub teams delivering a countywide service.
DBT-A works with young people and their families to value and manage emotion, impact their wider environment, and help move them closer to their goals. Our DBT-A includes multi-family group skills training and family involvement and works in collaboration with Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Adult Mental Health Services.
U&ME is an 18-session group-based skills programme that aims to help individuals to learn a broader range of strategies for managing their emotions and be more effective in relationships. The group uses DBT materials and was developed to meet the needs of individuals who would have traditionally fallen through the gap between primary and secondary care services.
Main duties of the job
The successful candidate will be supported in their role by colleagues within the Personality Disorder Hub, being line-managed and supervised by the specialist service, attending & contributing to professional development activities within the Hub, and co-delivering group interventions and staff training with other members of the team.
The post holders will work within a multidisciplinary team to:
1. Provide assessment to clarify service users' presenting difficulties and suitability for the programmes.
2. Provide lead facilitation of group sessions alongside another member of the Multidisciplinary Team (MDT).
3. Collaborate in using outcome information to inform and develop good practice and review individuals' progress on completing the programme.
4. Help develop systems and audit projects to allow any data collected to inform Trust management, commissioners, users and other relevant stakeholders of the needs of this population.
5. Contribute to further service development that will aim to promote early identification of personality difficulties, help service users to access to the most appropriate interventions available across the pathway, and enable referring service colleagues to promote the use of effective coping strategies within their own short-term interventions.
About us
NHFT is an integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools. We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
NHFT promotes a culture of learning to improve the care and safety of our patients and staff, which focuses on people who enable our Trust to be 'outstanding' by supporting opportunity, innovation, development and growth.
Date posted
10 April 2025
Pay scheme
Agenda for change
Band
Band 5
Salary
£29,970 to £36,483 a year per annum
Contract
Permanent
Working pattern
Full-time
Reference number
270-TG021-MH
Job locations
Lotus House
Victoria Street
Northampton
NN1 3NR
Job description Job responsibilities
Regular clinical supervision will be provided by a Clinical Psychologist and management supervision by the Service Manager/ Clinical Lead. There are a range of development opportunities due to the services role in training others, its strong internal CPD programme and commitment to reflective practice, and the integrated nature of Psychology Services across NHFT. It is essential that applicants have a recognised undergraduate qualification.
For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the About You Section of the document.
The Personality Disorder Service has a strategy to provide an equitable, inclusive, representative and anti-racist service for its service users. We have a commitment to creating and maintaining a diverse workforce and therefore encourage anyone who self-identifies as belonging to a marginalised and/or minoritised community to apply for the post. We encourage all applicants to communicate an understanding of the difficulties marginalised and minoritised communities face in accessing psychological therapies in their application and/ or interview.
Person Specification Behaviours & Values
Essential
* An ability to interact with people with mental health difficulties/ mild learning disabilities, with a well-developed service-user focus and desire to work with others in the pursuit of better mental health.
* Ability to work with team members as well as independently reliably and consistently, with work agreed and supervised at regular intervals.
* Approachable and accessible, with an ability to interact effectively with staff from all disciplines.
Desirable
* Ability to accept and use supervision appropriately and effectively.
* Ability to cope with and maintain professional boundaries.
* To communicate in a range of forums.
Knowledge & Experience
Essential
* An upper second class honours undergraduate degree or higher in psychology and Graduate Basis for Registration with the British Psychological Society or relevant postgraduate study.
* Experience of working with people with mental health difficulties and/or other disabilities as an assistant psychologist.
* Experience of using psychological assessments, formulations, risk assessments and care planning.
Desirable
* Experience and confidence in delivering group-based interventions.
* Training or experience of DBT-informed interventions.
* Further postgraduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis.
Skills & Abilities
Essential
* High level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive.
* Full clean driving license and access to a vehicle for use at work.
* Experience using microcomputers for databases or data-analysis, & skills in presenting this data.
Desirable
* Ability to communicate sensitive information to clients, carers and colleagues in a way that addresses psychological resistance, with a high standard of report writing.
* Provide clear and consistent leadership ensuring a positive working environment for the team.
* Presentation skills.
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.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details
Employer name: Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
Address:
Lotus House
Victoria Street
Northampton
NN1 3NR
Employer's website:
https://www.nhft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)
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