Overview
Role: Highly Specialist Clinical/Counselling Psychologist – Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust
We have an exciting opportunity for a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to join the Home Treatment Teams across Westminster & Kensington and Chelsea. The teams work alongside inpatient and community mental health services to offer an increased level of support to those experiencing a mental health crisis outside an inpatient setting. The team supports service users living in their own homes and step down accommodation across the boroughs.
The post-holder will work collaboratively with the Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) and colleagues from other services to manage risk and to provide a psychological perspective to care, along with providing assessment, formulation and brief interventions to service users and their families. The post-holder will also support and work with the team to develop a range of psychologically informed interventions. The post holder will also be integral to decisions and delivery about reflective practice, team formulation/consultation and post incident support.
The service is proud to be accredited by the Quality Network for Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment Teams (QNCRHTT) with the Royal College of Psychiatry; The post holder would be actively involved in ensuring the psychological standards are met and maintained.
The post holder will be the supervisor for the Assistant Psychologists and other psychological professionals in the team, and will provide a placement for a trainee clinical psychologist from the North London training courses.
Main duties
* Providing a full and comprehensive psychology service providing direct care to service users and their families offering assessment, formulation, risk assessment and brief evidence-based interventions when indicated.
* Offering indirect work to ensure that all members of the MDT have access to a psychological framework for understanding the service user’s needs, via psychological consultation, clinical meetings and team formulation.
* Developing the MDT’s knowledge and skills to use a psychological approach to a service user’s care through teaching, training and, where needed, supervision.
* Working as an integrated clinical member of a multi-disciplinary team, with responsibility for governance of a high-quality specialist Clinical/Counselling Psychology service.
* Utilising research skills for audit, policy and service development.
* Providing post incident support and contributing to reflective practice within the MDT; engaging in leadership activities related to accreditation (QNCRHTT).
Working for our organisation
The population served by Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster Mental Health Services is ethnically diverse, with significant ethnic minority, immigrant and refugee communities. Parts of the catchment area are characterised by socio-economic deprivation and there are high rates of psychiatric morbidity. The post holder will be expected to travel across the Boroughs, liaising with operational managers and psychological services. Clinical assessments and interventions may be carried out in a number of settings including inpatient wards, community bases and patients’ homes.
Detailed Job Description and Main Responsibilities
The post holder will be based in the Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster Home Treatment Teams and will be part of both boroughs’ Mental Health Services and acute mental health psychology teams, supervised by the Acute Psychology Lead. Home Treatment Teams provide a service for adult service users experiencing mental health crisis requiring intensive home-based support and treatment, with the aim of enabling clients to be cared for at home during crisis and supporting transition from hospital back to home. Travel to service users’ homes is required.
The post-holder will be responsible for providing a psychological therapy service, including direct care to service users and their families, offering assessment, formulation, risk assessment and brief evidence-based interventions as indicated. This includes providing recommendations for psychological therapy to support service users’ recovery.
The post-holder will also offer indirect work to ensure that all MDT members have access to a psychological framework for understanding service users’ needs, via psychological consultation, clinical meetings and team formulation, contributing to formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.
The development of the psychological framework in the MDT will be supported by teaching, training and supervision provided by the post-holder and the wider crisis and borough psychology teams. The post holder will work as an integrated clinical member of a MDT, with responsibility for governance of a high-quality service. The post holder will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team.
The post holder will participate as a senior clinician and be an integral part of the leadership team involved in development and delivery of a high-quality service. Supervision of two assistant psychologists and trainee psychologists, and participation in clinical and senior team meetings are included, along with facilitating reflective spaces for the MDT and maintaining accreditation with QNCRHTT. As an autonomous practitioner, you will work within professional guidelines and the service’s policies and procedures. You will also offer post-incident support to staff for wellbeing and psychological safety.
Person specification
Education
* Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology or its equivalent, including models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS and/or Accredited psychological practitioner with significant experience.
* Professional registration with the Health and Care Professions Council and/or equivalent registering body.
* Training in clinical supervision for doctoral, and equivalent, trainees
Desirable criteria
* Training in the supervision of psychological therapies
* Evidence of post-doctoral training in psychological therapies relevant to severe and enduring mental health difficulties including for example DBT/CBT-P/Systemic Practice
Experience
Essential criteria
* Post or pre-qualification experience of working in mental health settings delivering specialist psychological assessment, formulation and interventions in acute or crisis settings.
* Post qualification experience
* Experience of working with a wide range of client groups across the whole life course presenting with a range of psychological problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity
* Experience of providing clinical supervision to assistant/trainee or qualified psychologists, and/or other professionals
Desirable criteria
* Post qualification experience and/or training in working with adults affected by psychological trauma.
* Experience of having facilitated/co-facilitated psychological therapy groups
* Experience of service development/change leadership.
Knowledge/Skills
Essential criteria
* Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management requiring sustained and intense concentration
* Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
* Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
* Able to provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where there are significant barriers to acceptance which need to be overcome using the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills
Desirable criteria
* Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, e.g. complex psychometric testing and specialist neuropsychological testing
* Knowledge of QN-CRHTT standards and accreditation process
Seniority level
* Mid-Senior level
Employment type
* Full-time
Job function
* Health Care Provider
Industries
* Hospitals and Health Care
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