Assistant Psychologist Crisis Plus | South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; London; On-site; GBP 30,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare organization in London seeks an Assistant Psychologist to join the Croydon Crisis Plus pilot. The role involves creating multi-agency crisis plans for individuals with complex emotional needs. Candidates will utilize psychological skills in assessments and contribute to clinical discussions. The position is based onsite in Croydon, with various employee benefits including flexible working, career development programs, and NHS discounts.

Benefits

Generous pay and pensions package

Work-life balance options

Career development programs

NHS discounts from various brands

Cycle to work scheme

Qualifications

• Experience in mental health settings or with complex emotional needs.
• Understanding of multi-agency crisis management.
• Ability to develop close working relationships with diverse service users.

Responsibilities

• Co-create effective multi-agency crisis plans.
• Support the delivery of time-limited interventions.
• Attend and contribute to multi-disciplinary clinical discussions.

Skills

Communication skills

Assessment and formulation

Data collection and analysis

Education

Relevant psychology degree

Tools

Databases for outcome tracking

Job description

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Croydon Crisis Plus pilot, as an Assistant Psychologist within Croydon Adult Mental Health Services. This is pilot project working across services in the Croydon directorate, offering targeted support to individuals with Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) who have frequent psychiatric admissions and use of crisis services.

Under the supervision of qualified psychologists, the successful applicant will lead on the co-creation of effective multi-agency crisis plans with the CEN highest-use service users and their care teams. The service users present with complex, sometimes challenging behaviours and acute risk in crisis. The successful applicant will develop and use a range of psychological skills including assessment and formulation, and working in a systemically-focused approach.

The successful candidate will support the delivery of time-limited interventions to service users, carers, and a range of mental health professionals to develop Anticipatory Management. This will require comprehensive assessment of service users’ developmental histories, patterns of presentation and use of crisis services from clinical documentation and consultation. This information will be used to develop guidance for service users, their carers, mental health and external agencies on how best future crises can be more effectively managed and to support the service user’s recovery.

A core part of the role is liaison with services in order to refine and further develop plans, and support services to action plans. The postholder will attend MDT meetings, ward rounds, etc and needs to be confident following and, at times contributing to, multi-disciplinary clinical discussion.

There is a strong data collection, analysis and interpretation aspect to the role. Amongst other activities, this includes the collection of qualitative and quantitative outcome data from service users and the network of professionals, and developing and maintaining a number of databases linked to the identification of HIUs.

In light of the need to develop close working relationships with services and service users, this is a face to face, onsite role.

You will be based across a number of sites in Croydon, including Bethlem Royal Hospital, Croydon University Hospital and Croydon Community teams.

Some of the benefits of working for SLaM are highlighted here:
• Generous pay, pensions and leave, we offer a comprehensive pay, pensions and leave package which is dependent on the role and length of service.
• Work life balance, flexible working and support a range of flexible options, such as: part-time working and job sharing.
• Career development, we support your development through a number of programmes such as mentoring, coaching, positive people management, collective leadership and other talent programmes
• Car lease, our staff benefits from competitive deals to lease cars
• Accommodation, our staff benefits from keyworker housing available which is available on selected sites
• NHS discounts, with discounts up to 10% from a variety of well-known retail brands though Health Service Discounts website.

Other benefits include:
• Counselling services
• Long service awards
• Cycle to work scheme
• Season ticket loan
• Staff restaurants
• Work with SUs who present with Complex Emotional Needs, with repeat use of acute and crisis services.
• Contribute to the co-creation of effective multi-agency crisis plans with the highest-use service users and their care teams.
• Use a range of psychological skills including assessment and formulation, and working in a systemically-focused approach.
• Offering guidance to service users, their carers, mental health and external agencies on how best future crises can be more effectively managed and to support the SU's recovery.
• Attend MDT meetings, ward rounds, etc; follow and contribute to multi-disciplinary clinical discussion.
• Developing the function of Crisis Plus, including supporting the development of new interventions that proactively engage service users.
• Collection of qualitative and quantitative outcome data from SUs and their network of professionals, and developing and maintaining a number of databases linked to the identification of HIUs.
• Support the wider work in Lewisham and the trust in relation to HIUs.
• Key responsibilities are detailed in the Job description and person specification.


This advert closes on Sunday 27 Jul 2025