An exciting opportunity has arisen for Clinical Psychologist's to work within Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust in the Building Attachment and Bonds Service. Due to the expansion of the service we are looking to recruit a Clinical Psychologist who has a passion and drive for attachment based interventions. The service will offer relevant training and support to ensure newly qualified applicants are eligible for preceptorship to an 8a clinical psychology post after 2 years of direct clinical experience.

Secondments will also be considered.

The service offers group and individual interventions utilising a range of attachment based interventions.

Over the last 8 years Mersey Care's award winning BABS service has continued to grow and transform. It is this transformation that has has given us this opportunity to develop the service and workforce over the next few years which adheres to best practice and provides focused, personalised care for Service Users, enabling people to achieve their own personal outcomes.

Main duties of the job

To provide a qualified specialist clinical psychology service to clients of the service team, across all relevant sectors within an equality and human rights framework. To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy, offering advice and consultation on clients' psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non professional carers. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Directorate's and team's policies and procedures. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

A workplan will be developed with the postholder which will be reviewed on a yearly basis depending on the needs of the service.

About us

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

Job description

Job responsibilities

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses where appropriate.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment and treatment of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based enhanced care plans.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and reviewing of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Person Specification

application form

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, or its approved equivalent accredited by the BPS
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• 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 clinical psychology in different cultural contexts

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).

Values

Essential

• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet

Skills

Essential

• Expertise in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well developed and effective communication skills, oral and written, to communicate complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non professional groups
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
• Knowledge of IT systems including word processing, email and local electronic patient information systems
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Reasonable adjustments will be made for those with sensory impairment
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of service governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
• Ability to self-reflect, use clinical supervision appropriately and consider complex organisational and team dynamics

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of at least one specialised psychological therapy.

Employer details

Employer name

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Manor Farm Primary Care Resource Centre

Knowsley

L36 0XB

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

350-COM5586723-A