Assistant Psychologist - Dietetic Assistant

Children's Hospice South West; Cambridge; Remote; GBP 18,000 - 22,000; Part time

Job summary

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust invites applications for an enthusiastic Assistant Psychologist to join the CEW team at Addenbrooke's Hospital. The post is 0.8 WTE (0.4 wte Assistant Psychologist, 0.4 wte Dietetic Assistant) and covers patients across the East of England.

You will work with a multidisciplinary team and contribute to psychological assessment, group interventions, and collaborative dietetic care for children with severe obesity.

Qualifications

• Honours degree or higher in psychology with BPS registration.
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Responsibilities

• Undertake protocol-based psychological assessments under supervision.
• Assist in formulation and delivery of care plans including psychological treatment.
• Coordinate and run therapeutic groups for children, young people and families.
• Develop resources for use with paediatric medical teams.
• Collaborate with the paediatric dietetic team to support CEW services.
• Support auditing, research, and staff education within the service.

Skills

High level communication skills

Time management

Teamwork in MDT

Advanced keyboard and technology

Education

Honours degree in psychology

Graduate membership of the British Psychological Society

Tools

Dietplan 6

Job description

Job summary

We would like to recruit an enthusiastic and creative Assistant Psychologist to work in our Complications of Excessive Weight (CEW) team.

This post forms part of the larger Paediatric Psychological Medicine team based at Addenbrooke's Hospital and employed by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

This 0.8 WTE post (0.4 wte Assistant Psychologist, 0.4 wte Dietetic Assistant/responsibilities) will be based at Addenbrooke's Hospital, but covering patients from across the East of England.

The post will involve working with a multidisciplinary team of Consultants, Nurses, Dietitian, Family therapist, Family support worker and a Counselling psychologist. The scope of the service is to take an MDT biopsychosocial approach to improve the care for children and young people (CYP), with comorbid complications related to severe obesity.

Main duties of the job

To support and enhance the professional psychological care of clients referred to the Paediatric Obesity service.

To support with psychological assessment and intervention under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, working independently according to a plan agreed with a qualified psychologist and within the overall framework of the team's policies and procedures.

To support with the development and facilitation of group interventions for children, young people and their families.

To develop appropriate resources for use within clinical work with children, young people and families under the care of paediatric medical teams within Addenbrooke's

To work alongside the Paediatric dietetic team and in conjunction with the advanced paediatric dietitian assist in the provision of specialist dietetic services to the CEW Service.

To work within a multi professional framework and contribute to a first class dietetic service through evidence based clinical practice, management, education, research and audit.

To assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, and development of audit and/or research projects, teaching and project work.

About us

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting and empowering them to lead fulfilling lives.

Our clinical teams deliver a wide range of NHS services across inpatient, primary care and community settings, including children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, and research and development.

To achieve our goals, we recruit high calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities' employer, we welcome applications from all sections of the community, particularly underrepresented groups including people with long term conditions and members of our ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ communities.

All appointments for new employees to CPFT are subject to the successful completion of a probationary period.

Please note we reserve the right to close adverts early should we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all roles. If you apply for a post that does not attract sponsorship, your application will be withdrawn from the process.

For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at https://www.cpft.nhs.uk

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.

1. To undertake protocol based psychological assessments of clients applying psychological tests, including 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, under the supervision of a qualified psychologist.2. To assist in the formulation and delivery of care plans involving the psychological treatment and/or management of a clients problems, under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, in both community and hospital settings.3. To assist in the coordination and running of therapeutic groups.4. To assist in the development of a psychologically based framework ofunderstanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings where care takes place.5. To support with nutritional and anthropometric assessments and interventions under the supervision of an Advanced Paediatric Dietitian, working independently according to a plan agreed with the dietitian and within the overall framework of the teams policies and procedures.6. To use frameworks, protocols, guidance and support from the advanced paediatric dietitian to ensure effective implementation of dietetic treatment programmes for patients. 7. To support the advanced dietitian with the monitoring and management of individual nutritional therapy programmes including modifications to programmes where indicated, using an agreed framework,8. To carry out accurate nutritional assessments, taking diet histories and assessing food record charts both manually and using a computer software package such as Dietplan 6. 9. To be proficient in performing accurate anthropometric measurements where required.10. To work with the Advanced Paediatric dietitian to develop and deliver a 4-6 month dietetic led education programme for children and young people with CEW. Programme to include topics such as energy balance, portion sizes, food labelling, triggers, behaviour change, routine and activity.

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications

Essential

• An honours degree or higher in psychology.
• Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society.

Desirable

• Further post graduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working with children and young people.

Desirable

• Experience working with children, young people and families specifically in medical settings.
• Experience of conducting audits.
• Experience of co-facilitating groups with service-users and/or teams.

Skills and 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.
• Excellent time management and organisational skills.
• Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team.
• Advanced keyboard and technology skills

Knowledge and Understanding

Essential

• An understanding of the needs and difficulties of people with physical health conditions.
• An ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to this population.

Desirable

• Awareness and application of diversity issues in clinical practice.

Other

Essential

• An interest in working with children and families.
• An interest in working with children and families with severe obesity and/or complex medical presentations
• A desire to explore a career in Professional Psychology.
• An interest in human nutrition and dietetic interventions.
• An interest in the role food and food choice plays in severe obesity and related complications.

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Employer details

Employer name

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Addenbrookes Hospital

Hills Road

Cambridge

CB2 0QQ

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)