This is an exciting opportunity to work in a small specialist psychological therapies team offering individual and group therapies and consultation and supervision to a locality Community Mental Health Team.

Main duties of the job

To participate in the provision of psychological services to adults with severe and enduring mental health difficulties within the Swale locality served by the Trust.

In particular:

• To be responsible for the systematic provision of a Specialist Psychology Services to clients with complex and longstanding mental health difficulties as referred from the secondary care mental health service within the Swale Psychological Therapies service.
• To undertake high quality direct (assessment and therapeutic) and indirect (consultative, advisory and evaluative) specialist psychology interventions in these services making autonomous clinical decisions about own professional practice.
• To ensure the clinical effectiveness of own practice and of service functioning by undertaking research and development activities relevant to the service area.
• To work as part of the multi-disciplinary team of the Swale Community Mental Health Team.

About us

Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life.

We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people across the county.

The Trust (rated Good overall by the CQC and Outstanding for care) has 3,283 staff working in 66 buildings across 33 locations, covering an area of 1,450 square miles.

You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones.

The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.

Job description

Job responsibilities

• CLINICAL

To provide specialist psychological assessment of clients with complex and long-standing mental health difficulties referred to the mental health team, utilising information from a broad range of structured psychometric and semi-structured clinical methodologies and integrating it into a psychological formulation of the client and the psychosocial environment, drawing on a range of psychological theoretical perspectives.

To formulate and implement plans of specialist psychological treatment or management of clients mental health problems based on a multi-factorial psychological understanding and current evidence-based best practice.

To undertake a range of psychological interventions, drawing on a range of psychological models and employing a range of modalities (individual, family and group) adapted and tailored to the needs of the individual and the context and ongoing evaluation of the outcomes of the intervention.

To be responsible for providing a specialist psychological perspective in the multi-disciplinary assessment of service users and their families.

To contribute highly specialist psychological advice to the multi-disciplinary formulation of appropriate therapeutic approaches or intervention plans, and to be involved in, or oversee specialist psychological aspects of their implementation in collaboration with other staff.

To undertake psychologically based risk assessment and risk management for relevant clients and provide advice on the psychological aspects of risk to the multi-disciplinary team.

When appropriate to consult with and provide specialist psychological guidance to carers and families of service users.

To exercise autonomous professional judgement and responsibility for the psychological management of clients on own caseload.

• TEACHING/TRAINING/SUPERVISION/CONSULTATION

To teach psychological knowledge and skills to other professions and trainees of other professions in the collaboration with other professional tutors and teachers.

To be responsible for regularly consulting to and advising colleagues from other professions on psychological assessment and treatment methods in the multi-disciplinary forums within the CMHT.

To teach, advise and consult with care and community groups on psychological elements on mental health problems and their care.

To participate in the specialist training of other psychologists in collaboration with senior psychologist, as appropriate.

• EVALUATION/RESEARCH/DEVELOPMENT

To remain informed of and critically evaluate current research to support evidence-based practice in own professional work and to contribute this perspective in the multi-disciplinary team.

To contribute to project management of complex audit, assisting colleagues to develop service provision.

To contribute to the evaluation of the Psychological Therapy Services by participating in service-related research and evaluation projects, as agreed with the Head of Speciality.

Please see Job description for full details.

Person Specification

Training

Essential

• Relevant post-graduate professional training
• Registration with appropriate professional body (HCPC/UKCP/BABCP/BACP)
• Specialist training/experience in Adult Mental Health

Desirable

• Evidence of further training in specialist area or mode of practice

Experience

Essential

• Minimum of 50 hours specialist clinical supervision (received) in relation to Adult Mental Health practice

Desirable

• Experience of providing teaching and training to staff

Employer details

Employer name

Kent & Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust

Address

Sittingbourne Memorial Hospital

Bell Road

Sittingbourne

ME10 4DT

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

380-EK024-B