Highly Specialist Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

NHS; Greater London; On-site; GBP 59,000 - 67,000; Full time

Job description

Highly Specialist Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

This role is for a dynamic clinical psychologist with experience in acute care, to work within the HTT team and crisis pathway. This role will involve working with other psychological professionals and MDT to ensure a systematic provision of a highly specialist, psychology service which meets key objectives around preventing admissions, supporting service users and families through a flexible approach as well as supporting the development of trauma informed practices which enhance service user experience and improved outcomes.

Main duties of the job

• Specialist assessments, formulations and interventions, which include individual, group and family work where needed.
• Facilitate Case Formulation and Reflective Practice for a specific team within Newham.
• Clinically supervising assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists, other psychological therapy staff and non-psychological staff where appropriate.
• Apply the principles of recovery to empower service users through a variety of psychological interventions taking into account a range of systemic impact on mental health.
• Work with diverse communities with different cultural/spiritual beliefs, including working with interpreters where required.
• Develop working partnerships with other services across Newham (e.g Early Intervention, Acute, community teams) and develop links with third sector organisations.
• Undertake clinical audit and quality improvement tasks to improve outcomes and enhance service user experience.
• Engage in teaching, training and ongoing training as required.

About us

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job responsibilities

The post holder will be responsible for providing psychological interventions directly and indirectly to individuals in the context of an MDT approach. It will provide input into the Home Treatment Team and will be flexible to work with service users in their homes. It will include addressing the needs of service users with physical and mental health conditions, including substance misuse, dementia/delirium, learning disabilities and medically unexplained symptoms. Opportunities for teaching, consultation and case formulation to multi-disciplinary teams within the Crisis Pathway will be an important part of the role as will be the supervision of doctoral trainees, psychology assistants and other professionals. The post holder will work closely with the MDT team across the crisis pathway as well as lead psychologists supporting clinical leadership within the complex emotional needs pathway and psychosis pathway.

Person Specification

Education/Qualification

• Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS.
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Additional training in systemic therapy/working with families.
• Training in single session models/EMDR.

Experience

• Significant experience of work as a qualified Clinical/Counselling Psychologist in NHS settings.
• Experience of working with people who experience psychosis, personality disorder and complex depression and anxiety.
• Experience of working as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Experience of providing a clinical service to a multicultural population, including working with interpreters.
• Able to contribute a psychological perspective in work with other professionals.
• Experience of working as a psychologist with at least three service user/care groups.
• Experience of the CPA system.
• Experience of supervising others' clinical work.
• Understanding of the supervisory process.
• Able to deliver teaching and training events. Experience of developing and delivering highly specialist training programmes.

Knowledge and Skills

• Communication & Relationship skills: Able to provide & receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere, in a range of relationships and settings.
• Able to use highly specialist skills of empathy to overcome barriers to understanding and acceptance. Sensitive and respectful approach to the needs of people with severe and enduring mental health difficulties, their families and carers.
• Able to build good working relationships with other professionals.
• Committed to reflective practice.
• Analytical & judgemental skills.
• Able to draw upon a broad theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of highly complex facts or situations to arrive at appropriate formulations.
• Able to compare and select from a range of intervention options, (minimum of two therapeutic orientations) based on formulation.
• Able to provide brief and longer term therapeutic interventions.
• Able to understand the complexity involved in working with people with severe and enduring mental health difficulties. Understanding of the CPA system. Awareness of government frameworks and guidelines relating to mental health, e.g. NSF, NHS plan, Treatment Choice in Psychological Therapies.
• Experience in facilitating/leading group/team discussions.
• Able to apply at least one theoretical framework to the understanding of organisational processes.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis.

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.

£59,490 to £66,239 a year per annum Inc HCAs