Band 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

NHS; Weston-super-Mare; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare provider in Weston-super-Mare is seeking a Band 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join their dynamic team. The successful candidate will provide specialist psychological assessments and interventions, offer training and supervision to staff, and engage in service development. Applicants must have a Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology, HCPC registration, and a strong passion for working with individuals facing complex mental health challenges. The role demands excellent interpersonal skills and substantial clinical supervision experience.

Benefits

Good access to CPD

Supportive team environment

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• Proven experience delivering therapy to clients with high distress or emotional disturbances.
• Substantial clinical supervision experience with various professionals.
• Well-organized with strong administrative skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist assessment, intervention, and training to multidisciplinary teams.
• Offer regular clinical supervision and support to trainees and staff.
• Engage in service development work in collaboration with clinical managers.

Skills

Experience with complex mental health difficulties

Excellent interpersonal skills

Supervision and training of staff

Experience in personality difficulties and complex trauma

Education

Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology

HCPC registration

Relevant Specialist CPD qualification (CBT, DBT, etc.)

Post-qualification training in supervision

Training in Neuro-psychological Assessment

Job description

Band 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist - Weston super Mare

We are looking for an experienced Clinical/Counselling Psychologist passionate about working with complex mental health difficulties to join our diverse, dynamic team of skilled practitioners in North Somerset. You would offer evidence based approaches to work with service users and supervision and training for Recovery staff and PTS Colleagues.

North Somerset PTS services work across all acute, community and inpatient services in North Somerset. The service is made up of a multidisciplinary team comprising clinical psychologists, arts psychotherapists, family therapists, CBT therapists CAT therapists and psychotherapists as well as CAPs.

We are a friendly and supportive team, who are highly valued within local services. Within PTS, psychologists are professionally managed with good supervision and peer support arrangements. There is good access to CPD and the Department has strong links with local training courses.

Main duties of the job

You will provide specialist assessment, formulation and intervention, alongside staff training, supervision, consultation and support to the North Somerset Recovery team. You will also provide clinical supervision to less experienced PTS staff, placements to Clinical/Counselling Psychology trainees and engage in service development work as appropriate.

To work with the Recovery Services, it is essential for you to have experience of delivering therapy to this client group and an interest in personality difficulties and complex trauma. You will also need to have undertaken further specialist therapy training. We are particularly interested for applicants trained or willing to undertake training in CAT.

You will need excellent interpersonal skills to support the development of psychological thinking and intervention within multidisciplinary teams as well as experience of delivering supervision and training.

About us

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.

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.

Job responsibilities

1. To offer a highly specialist and autonomous systematic Psychological Therapies service in specified lead areas.

2. To provide an advanced and specialist assessment and treatment role in the North Somerset Recovery Team, using relevant approaches for clients presenting with high levels of distress/emotion/ behavioural disturbance.

3. To offer regular Clinical supervision (both individual and group) to peers, trainees and other professionals from the locality and other parts of the service.

4. To undertake regular teaching, as appropriate, in psychological approaches to healthcare to trainees, team members and PTS staff.

5. To plan and implement service developments regarding specialist areas of skill linked to service priorities in collaboration with the Head of Psychological Therapies and local clinical managers (e.g. collaborating with colleagues in developing a strategy for the development of an identified service area).

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology.
• HCPC registration.
• Relevant Specialist CPD qualification (CBT, DBT, CAT, Systemic Family approaches, MBT, etc).
• Completion of Post-qualification training in supervision.
• Completion of a second evidence based post qualification therapy training.
• Training in Neuro-psychological Assessment.

Experience

• Substantial experience of using highly specialist therapeutic interventions within Secondary services AMH client group using relevant CPD qualifications
• Substantial Clinical Supervision experience with colleagues and Trainees
• Substantial Clinical Supervision experience with other professions, both in formal groups and individually
• Substantial Teaching/Training experience with psychologists and other professions
• Experience of Service development/project work
• Ability to manage high levels of distress/emotion/behavioural disturbance in others and sustain professional practice in adverse situations
• Well organised with good administration skills
• Evidence of appropriate self - reflection in application
• Publishing and disseminating research findings and ideas at a professional level

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.

Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Head of PTS