We are excited to be advertising for an experienced and enthusiastic clinical psychologist to join our multidisciplinary team for adults with learning disabilities. We welcome and encourage applications from band 8a applicants, or band 7 with experience looking to progress to band 8a.

We are a community-based service assessing and supporting individuals with learning difficulties who require assessment and treatment for mental or behavioural disorder. We are focussed on delivering a therapeutic model of care underpinned by active support, positive behaviour support and Trauma informed care.

This is a rare opportunity to join the team at a time when we are transforming and you are able to influence the development of a safe and efficient service for adults with learning disabilities. This dynamic role requires strong skills in leadership and innovation, in addition to previous experience of service development and delivery. We are looking for applicants who have a passion and commitment to working with people with Learning Disabilities and their carers.

Harrow is a vibrant, multicultural area and is very easily accessible from central London on the Jubilee and Metropolitan Lines, taking around 25 minutes (Harrow).

Main duties of the job

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

As a key member of the multidisciplinary team you will be responsible for providing a variety of psychological and behavioural assessments of people with learning disabilities across a range of ability levels, developing formulations, recommendations and implementing therapeutic intervention and managing a diverse and wide-ranging clinical caseload with support from the wider team. You will be responsible for providing specialist psychological support, guidance and advice to families and carers as well as other professionals.

You will receive regular supervision and support from a highly specialized service lead and the wider clinical network.

About us

Come and join us and be one of the 1500 Therapists / AHP's in CNWL. We work in many different teams in both physical and mental health, as well as many specialist areas. You could have a career for life with us.

Personal and professional development is a high priority for the profession this enables us to invest in the development of our staff by providing excellent internal training as well as commissioning specialised external training and providing quality supervision. This ensures all our therapists / AHP's reach their full potential at every stage of their career. Our commitment to research, audit and evidence-based practice is made possible by our strong links with local universities and our CNWL AHP Research Network.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion are a priority for us in CNWL we expect staff to be culturally competent, reflective and open to culturally diverse CPD opportunities. We are working hard support the recruitment and development of staff from all protected characteristics and welcome applications from any interested applicants.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please see Job description for details

To provide a clinical psychology service to clients of the Harrow Community Learning Disability service, providing specialist psychological assessment and therapy, advice and consultation on clients psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the CNWL and team policies and procedures. To utilize research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area serve by the team/service.

Person Specification

TRAINING & QUALIFICATIONS

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS.

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment 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.
• Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours
• Experience of working in Learning Disability services, across a range of abilities, including service users presenting with mental health problems, autistic spectrum disorders, and other challenging behaviours.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
• Experience of work as a psychologist in inpatient settings.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently 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 clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
• Experience and knowledge of behavioural assessment and intervention methods in people with challenging behaviour

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialized psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc). High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialized psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Other

Essential

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multimedia materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

Desirable

• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Employer details

Employer name

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Northwick Park Hospital

Harrow

HA1 3UJ

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

333-J-HA-0511-E