An exciting opportunity has arisen in Hounslow CAMHS for a Band 7 (0.8 WTE) Psychologist to work in Tier 3 CAMHS taking up two different roles that offer variety and opportunities for professional development.

The role is split across the Child & Family Team (five sessions) and the Community Adolescent Team (three sessions). The post holder will offer clinical assessment and evidence-based therapy to children, young people (aged 5-18) and families where there are severe and complex mental health difficulties.

We are a friendly, busy, borough-located service that prides itself in thinking and implementing creative and innovative ways of delivering care. We offer excellent CPD opportunities and a wide range of experience.

The post would be suited to someone who is passionate about delivering a high quality psychology service with young people and families and who wants to develop their clinical and professional skills.

Main duties of the job

You will be providing specialist psychological assessments and evidence based interventions for children, young people and families where there are severe and complex mental health difficulties. There will be opportunities for supervision of assistant psychologists and where appropriate of trainee psychologists and clinical associate psychologists, and to support service development and service user participation within the service.

The post is spilt between the Children and Family Team and the Community Adolescent Team, multidisciplinary teams, which are part of a thriving Tier 3 CAMHS service. There are regular psychology meetings and excellent CPD opportunities with whole-service trainings in therapeutic approaches, as well as funded external courses and specialist supervision groups. There are also many opportunities to develop further in role; for example through being part of quality improvement projects, or developing particular areas of interest.

You will be well-supported in the post and will receive clinical and professional supervision from a Band 8a Psychologist.

About us

West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK.

Our 3,982 staff care for people in hospital and in the community, helping them to recover and go on to lead full and productive lives. We aim to be the best organisation of our kind in the country.

We provide care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units.

We'rerated good overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Together, we're committed to promoting hope and wellbeing, working with patients, service users, carers, families and partners across the communities we serve.

We are keen to ensure that our workforce reflects the community it serves, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ and experience of mental illness.

Job description Job responsibilities

The post holder will join a multi-disciplinary CAMH service which is responsible for the delivery of specialist Tier 3 mental health services to the children of the Borough of Hounslow.

Clinical:

To provide psychological assessments of children with emotional and developmental difficulties, 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, including frontline workers in health, education, social services and the voluntary sector.

To contribute to specialist multidisciplinary assessments for children with emotional, behavioural and neurodevelopmental conditions.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of emotional and behavioural difficulties of clients, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

To be responsible for developing and 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, maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses and taking account of changing needs during the course of delivering the intervention.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical, environmental 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 collaborate with other members of the multi disciplinary and multi agency teams as appropriate in devising appropriate psychotherapeutic treatments for children, families and groups.

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.

In providing care to clients to liaise and work with family members and others involved in the clients care, including frontline workers in health, education, Children Services, inpatient services and the voluntary sector.

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 review of care plans including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.

To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, highly sensitive and complex 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.

Teaching, training, and supervision

To receive regular clinical professional supervision from an experienced clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

To gain wider post-qualification experience and skills relevant to clinical psychology, child and adolescent mental health and the service (as agreed with the professional psychology manager), by relevant study and attendance at training events, courses and conferences.

To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide consultation and supervision to other workers.

To provide professional and clinical supervision to assistant and/or graduate psychologists.

To supervise trainee clinical psychologists if appropriate.

To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings.

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 HCPC.

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
• Post-doctoral/graduate training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice with children and young people.
• Clinical training as part of a CYP IAPT collaborative in a recognised evidenced based approach i.e. CBT, Parenting Skills or other.

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.
• Experience of working with children and adolescents and their carer networks.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of working with other agencies.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of assessment and intervention with children with autistic spectrum disorders and or ADHD

Knowledge and Skills Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• 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 non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.

Desirable

• Knowledge and skills in specialist neuropsychological assessment and treatment with children and young people with neuro-developmental difficulties
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. children with challenging behaviour, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Other Requirements Essential

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media 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.

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

222-LS-CAMHS-257