Job summary

We have an exciting opportunity for a Clinical Psychologist in our Children's Learning Disabilities and Autism (Jigsaw) team, in Southampton City.

We are looking for a talented Clinical Psychologist with Doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology as accredited by the BPS and HCPC registration and with a strong interest in Learning Disabilities and Autism to join our dynamic and growing team. The post sits within the wider Solent Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) and is supported by the psychology team that works as part of the CAMHS offer overall.

You would be joining at an exciting time for the Jigsaw team. We are a team that is aligned, and based within, the Children with Disabilities Social Work team in Southampton City Council and we have received new investment that will enable growth of our existing service that supports children with Learning Disability to enable us to support children with Neurodiversity/ Autism needs as well. As a dynamic team we are committed to finding creative ways of providing timely, locally delivered, high quality and effective interventions that maximise mental health and maintain children and young people within their home and educational environment.

Main duties of the job

As a core member of the team, you will be supporting children and young people on an individual basis as well as having an opportunity to contribute to the service development and the implementation of local services and care delivery pathways. You will have responsibilities for service development and supporting and supervising staff to deliver psychological services to children and young people, and their families. You will need to have excellent communication skills and to be able to quickly gain good rapport with people from a range of backgrounds. Good organisational skills and clinical assessment/problem solving skills are also required. Collaborative working with a range of professionals is an important part of this post and it is essential you can work as part of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency teams. The ability to work both within individual and group-based therapeutic programs of care is also essential.

There is peer support, regular team supervision meetings, group and individual clinical supervision and regular line management meetings. This post will involve work across the SEND 0-25 team based at the Civic Offices in Southampton City Centre and community-based work.

If you enjoy being a part of a team, are creative, seeking a new challenge and want to make a positive difference to the lives of children & young people and their families, then we would be delighted to hear from you.

About us

Make a difference with us

If you are looking for somewhere you can make a real difference and are passionate about keeping people safe, well and out of hospital, a career with us may be just what you're looking for. At Solent NHS Trust, we strive to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of our communities.

We are proud to be an organisation which is focused on our people and we welcome people who share our values to come and work with us.

To deliver great care that is safe, simple and easy to access

To be a caring, flexible and supportive place to work

To deliver the best value for money

Our shared values support the development of a strong working culture. They breathe life into our organisation -- guiding and inspiring all of our actions and decisions. They enable us to be better at what we do and create a great place for our staff to work, whilst ensuring we provide the highest quality of care to our patients.

In creating our values, we spent time listening to our employees and members. Based on what people told us, we created our HEART values to reflect the deep belief that we are caring organisation at the centre of our community: Honesty, Everyone counts, Accountable, Respectful, Teamwork.

We are an accredited Real Living Wage employer.

We encourage and support our staff to be vaccinated as this remains the best line of defence against Covid-19.

Job description

Job responsibilities

*Provide specialist psychological assessments, including behaviour analysis, therapy, and interventions to clients and families/carers for clients referred to the team.

*Use, interpret and integrate complex data from a variety of sources including psychometric, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations, school reports and semi-structured interviews.

*Conduct assessments with children/young people and family members/carers and other professionals and non-professionals involved in the child's care across the full range of care settings including clinic, home, and school using creative ways of obtaining information from children with communication difficulties including using alternative communication tools.

*Formulate and implement plans for the psychological treatment and/or management of a child/young person's mental health and or behavioural difficulties, based upon evidenced treatment interventions by choosing from a range of empirically supported treatment options and expert opinions for children and young people with complex difficulties, e.g. physical, sensory and learning disabilities, autism and challenging behaviour.

*To develop and implement psychological treatment programmes and care pathways for the relational/emotional/behavioural/developmental problems routinely referred to the Jigsaw service, such as managing behaviour that is challenging, sleeping, and feeding, self-image, attachment, managing emotions, coming to terms with a life limiting illness and adherence to programmes developed by other professional groups within the service.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, as accredited by the Health Professionals Council.

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training (through self-study/courses or supervision) in assessment and treatment of children with mental health and learning disabilities and complex needs.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of assessing and working with children and young people with a range of emotional and behavioural difficulties and their families/carers with the full range of clinical severity across a range of care settings, including outpatient and community settings
• Familiarity with 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 working with young people who have mental health difficulties or neurodevelopmental disorders and their families.
• Knowledge and experience in child protection/safeguarding procedures, to recognise abuse and escalate appropriately within statutory timeframes.
• Ability to work autonomously as part of a multi-disciplinary team and/or multi-agency network

Desirable

• Experience of running and evaluating groups

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

449-Team3-1309