Clinical Psychologist

We are seeking to recruit an experienced, knowledgeable and trauma-informed senior clinical psychologist to join our innovative Multi-agency and Integrated Service between Brighton & Hove County Council and Sussex Partnership Foundation trust. You will be working within the Partners in Change Hub in the Brighton & Hove Family and Children's Services department (recently awarded 'outstanding' by Ofsted,2024). The Partners in Change team (PiC) are a multi-disciplinary team where you will be working alongside Psychiatric Nurses, Substance Misuse specialists, Social Workers and Lead Practitioners. The PiC service is a friendly and welcoming team dedicated to providing a high-quality service which complements the work done by Children Services in liaison/partnership with other key agencies.

Main duties of the job

The service provides assessments and interventions to families within Brighton & Hove child protection, safeguarding and care proceedings where the parent / parents' own difficulties: substance misuse, mental health, sexual risk, learning difficulties, domestic violence are impacting on their ability to parent. This post is part of a further service development offering assessments and interventions to adults who present with complex needs including learning needs, neurodevelopmental needs and form of trauma often related to their own experiences as children and adults.

About us

The role is a nice balance of consultation, assessment (psychological and cognitive) and direct therapeutic intervention. The role will allow you to develop skills and opportunities to work with multiple types of complex trauma in your intervention work. You will contribute to wider trauma-informed practice development, staff training, and monitoring within the service. There are multiple working interest groups such as anti-poverty working groups you will have the opportunity to engage with, and help support, the active anti-racist practice already ongoing within BHCC. You will have the opportunity to develop psychological-informed, formulation driven reflective practice to understand complex families and systems with the wider social work network. The role also entails working alongside the BHCC legal team and decision-making around the use of externally commissioned expert witnesses. You will help develop the psychology service delivery through audit and performance monitoring and be part of steering group commissioning meetings with associate directors and service leads.

Job responsibilities

This varied and challenging role will involve working with families to enhance outcomes for children subject to Child Protection Plans and pre-proceedings through interventions with the adults thinking and taking into consideration the competing needs between the children and the adults. As an experienced clinical psychologist in the field of adult and family mental health, you will be confident in assessing and managing risk and will be able to communicate your professional opinion both verbally and in writing. The role will also involve providing consultation to social workers to assist them in case management, and sharing your skills within the team.

This role is being advertised as full time hours but part time working will be considered.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology [or its equivalent for those trained before 1996 or outside the UK*] as approved by the HPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• For forensic psychologists working in forensic settings: Masters degree (with the award of the British Psychological Society qualification in forensic psychology or equivalent).
• Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HPC).

Knowledge/Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings.
• Demonstrate specialist experience gained post-qualification of working as an applied psychologist with evidence of having received a substantial amount of clinical supervision (normally in the region of approximately 50 hours).
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Experience or demonstrable knowledge of working with the particular client group served by the team/service.
• Knowledge of guidance and legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

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.