This is an exciting time to join our growing service and contribute to the delivery of psychological services to improve short and long-term outcomes for service users experiencing problems associated with complex mental health problems. We are looking for an innovative, motivated and enthusiastic Clinical/Counselling Psychologist to work with people who have complex emotional needs (CEN) associated with a diagnosis of personality disorder. The CEN pathway is part of an integrated multi-disciplinary service which provides mental health (MH) services for adults within the community. The teamprovides psychological input, including assessment and treatment (group, individual and family), for people aged 18 and over who present with severe mental health problems including psychosis, personality disorder (and associated co-morbidities) and complex mental health difficulties. Our Personality Disorder pathway has an established MBT programme and an intensive full DBT programme. More recently, we have took an exciting and innovative approach to recruit an Advanced Lived Experience Practitioner, which provides the opportunity for much co-production within the CEN pathway.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will be expected to provide specialist psychological assessment and effective NICE-recommended interventions and advice, consultation & training on aspects of psychological care to colleagues from other disciplines as well as advice, family interventions & consultation to non-professional carers. This is a developing area of service provision & the post holder will have an opportunity to be involved in shaping & developing the service.

The pathway is part of an integrated psychology & psychotherapy service within a multi-disciplinary service which provides MH services for adults in a densely-populated and culturally-diverse borough in NorthWest London. Candidate will have contact with colleagues who deliver individual, group and family therapies from a wide range of interesting theoretical models.

The post holder will demonstrate a real commitment and compassion for working with this client group and across a diverse population. They will also ideally have experience of working within a secondary care context & will demonstrate a commitment to working alongside our Advanced Lived Experience Practitioners and Peer Support workers to promote co-production within the service. Strong team skills & the ability to work through consultancy with other staff members will be essential.

About us

Our service is committed to investing in the development of excellent clinicians and there are opportunities for career development including post-qualification training in an evidence-based model. Alongside relevant CPD opportunities and access to opportunities within the borough and wider trust for development of special interests and the sharing of specialist knowledge, clinical and management supervision is available to support flexible and skilled practice. We also have good links with, and have trainees from, all the Regional training courses. The post holder will have supervision responsibilities for pre-qualified Psychologists.

We are happy to consider interest from applicants currently working as a Band 7 Psychologist who would be interested in a development post, working towards becoming an 8A psychologist in six months.

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.

Job description Job responsibilities

Please refer to the Job description attached.

Clinical:

To provide specialist psychological assessments of patients referred to the psychological therapies service 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 patients care. This will include assessing and diagnosing complex mental health problems (including personality disorder), determining suitability for treatment and conducting a thorough risk assessment. To write up the assessment in a timely manner and to communicate a clear treatment and crisis plan to the patient, referrer and the GP

To formulate and implement treatment plans based on the evidence-based interventions for complex mental health difficulties (e.g. CBT, DBT, MBT and EMDR). To formulate management of a patients mental health problems, 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 evaluate and make decisions on therapeutic interventions considering the complexity of patients and the teams view and ensuring the safety of the therapeutic environment at all times

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions (both individual and group) 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

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options considering 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 patients whose problems are managed by psychologically-based standard care plans

To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patients 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 patient group

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

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

To liaise with the relevant community teams to ensure that clients receive regular multi-disciplinary review as needed

To work with patients in a sensitive and transparent way during times of crisis or concern

To provide and maintain clear, safe and consistent boundaries with patients

To be able to manage stress and anxiety as the clinical work will be complex and demanding.

Person Specification Qualifications Essential

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

Desirable

• Training in a second evidence-based therapy such as CBT (including CBT-p), CAT, EMDR or DBT.
• Experience of using family/systemic interventions.

Experience Essential

• Experience of working in secondary care mental health services with clients presenting with comorbidity, including chronic mood disorders, personality difficulties and trauma.
• Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours of clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of psychology and psychological therapy in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of representing psychological therapies within the context of multi-disciplinary care.

Knowledge and Skills Essential

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

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

333-J-BR-0480-A