Band 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist - Bristol

Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust; Bristol; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a passionate Clinical Psychologist to join their innovative Wellbeing team. This role offers the chance to provide evidence-based psychological interventions to children and young people facing emotional challenges, fostering recovery and wellbeing. You will hold a caseload, conduct complex assessments, and provide clinical supervision while implementing a transformative approach within secure services. Join a diverse organization dedicated to mental health, where your expertise will contribute to meaningful change in the lives of young individuals. This is an exciting opportunity to make a significant impact in a supportive and evolving environment.

Qualifications

• Doctoral qualification in Clinical Psychology or equivalent required.
• Experience in systemic working and evidence-based interventions.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients.
• Supervise and manage trainee clinical psychologists and other staff.
• Develop and deliver training in psychological therapies.

Skills

Clinical Psychology

Therapeutic Interventions

Clinical Risk Assessment

Communication Skills

Team Collaboration

Education

Doctoral Clinical Psychology or Counselling Psychology qualification

Chartered Psychologist status

HPC Registration

Job description

Job overview

Our Young Peoples Secure Health and Wellbeing Service is looking to recruit a highly motivated, Clinical Psychologist to join the team. You would have the opportunity to work as part of the Wellbeing team that is based in Vinney Green Secure Children's home, under the Leadership and supervision of a Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

You will provide evidence based psychological interventions to children and young people displaying high levels of emotional difficulties to promote recovery and wellbeing, as well as holding your own caseload. You will have the necessary specialist professional skills and knowledge to undertake complex children and young person's clinical risk assessments and to work clinically with the young people and staff teams. This challenging and innovative role will involve providing clinical supervision to team members and working to implement the Secure Stairs approach within and across the Young Peoples Secure Services under the Leadership of the 8c Consultant Clinical Psychologist.

You will be enthusiastic and highly motivated to provide a good quality, evidence based psychological service within a changing environment, with experience of systemic working. You will also work in partnership with other organisations and engage with young people who have complex needs and may have had difficult life experiences, providing a safe environment where they are able to express themselves without fear of judgement or prejudice.

Main duties of the job

To provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients and carers as appropriate to the service.

To provide highly specialist advice and consultation on clients' formulation and psychological management to other non-psychologist colleagues.

To use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to the more effective management of patients by the various teams in the area and where appropriate outside of the area.

To clinically supervise/line manage trainee clinical psychologist, assistant psychologists, CAPs and less experienced psychology staff, and other professionals.

To contribute to audit, research, policy and service development within the areas served by the Psychological Therapies Service.

To develop and deliver training training in psychological therapies for multidisciplinary staff.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

AWP is committed to support and create a positive research and evidence-based environment and culture, which can have a beneficial impact on everyone who works for the organisation and the care we provide to those who use our services.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide a high quality and largely autonomous and systematic clinical/counselling psychology
service.
To undertake highly specialist assessments, including neuropsychological assessment, risk assessment and assessment for suitability for specialist psychological therapies with clients and their carers (as appropriate to the role).
To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of clients' mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
To be responsible for providing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers 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.
To provide at least one specialist evidence based psychological intervention as dictated by the needs of the service.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Doctoral Clinical Psychology or Counselling Psychology qualification or equivalent.
• Eligible for Chartered Psychologist status.
• HPC Registered.
• Post qualification and further specialist training in specified specialist intervention

Desirable criteria

• Supervision Training

Knowledge

Essential criteria

• Clinical supervision/consultation with other professionals.
• Evidence based therapeutic interventions with client group.
• Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge in the specialism. Ability to use this knowledge to think systemically/ organizationally.
• Knowledge of relevant Legislation eg MH Act

Desirable criteria

• Clinical supervision of clinical psychology trainees

Skills

Essential criteria

• Good communication and liaison skills.
• Empathy/engagement skills with the client group.
• Ability to work effectively and flexibly as an integral member of a team.
• Well organised with good administration skills.

We are proud to be fostering a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. A key commitment to this is improving staff representation from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities, those from the LGBTQ+ communities, people with 'lived-experience' of mental health conditions and people living with disabilities,- we are a 'Disability Confident Employer' offering a guaranteed interview to Disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria. This includes people with a variety of disabilities and neurodivergent conditions (for example autism, ADHD, sensory, physical and learning disabilities).

We encourage applications from people who wish to work on a flexible basis, recognising that flexibility may mean a range of different working patterns and hours, we do our utmost to work with our staff to meet their needs and the needs of our service users.

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Please apply to join us, we would love to hear from you. Any personal details you supply to us are kept safe in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Adverts normally close for application a few minutes before midnight on the closing date and we will let you know if we are offering you an interview by email via our recruitment system 'TRAC'. We contact all applicants within 4 weeks after the closing date, so please check your emails regularly once you have submitted your application; you are welcome to contact us, via the TRAC system, if you have any queries about your application.

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Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Application numbers

This vacancy may close early if it receives a high number of applications. Please complete and submit your application in good time to avoid disappointment.
Documents to download

• Job Description and Person Specification (PDF, 440.4KB)
• Key Local Information (PDF, 264.6KB)
• Inclusive Top 50 UK Employers List (PDF, 78.9KB)
• Financial Support & Discounts (PDF, 919.6KB)
• Value of the NHS Pension Scheme (PDF, 279.0KB)