We are excited to recruit a Principal Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to a welcoming and growing specialist service working with people with complex emotional needs.

Sutton and Merton Complex Needs is an multi-disciplinary team including Clinical, Counselling Psychologists, Social Workers, Nurses, trainee Clinical Psychologist, Assistant Psychologists, administrators, Speciality Drs and Medical Psychotherapists. We also have strong connections with Clinical and Counselling Psychologists in adult and child services and you would form part of that professional network.

Career Progression pathways and development opportunities:

This is an exciting role and will includeregular opportunities for individual and group supervision to support your development.

We are committed to supporting staff in their career aspirations. We have career pathways available, where you will be able to develop your skills and build on your experience to progress.

Main duties of the job

This role is for an experienced Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to work in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and to supervise the DBT therapists who work in our team and also Clinical or Counselling Psychologists who are on special interest with us. You would also be attending our weekly consultation meeting. As well as offering DBT the team also offer Mentalisation Based Therapy and Psychotherapy and so you would be joining the other professionals in the wider team. There will be opportunity to develop within the team and take the lead on service improvement and team development projects.

We are excited to be offering PTSD work within our programme and the role would take the lead on this element of the therapeutic offer as part of DBT.

About us

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' - we aspire to be 'outstanding'.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety ofbenefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Come and join our inclusive teams and help our patients on their recovery journey.

Job description

Job responsibilities

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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.

2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

3. 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.

4. 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.

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

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

7. To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

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

9. To coordinate care, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, tasking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

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

11. To provide expertise, advice and support to all members of the treatment team to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care and to support other team Applied Psychologists in the service area, in their contribution (direct and indirect) to providing a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to all clients of the service in which they work.

Person Specification

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Doctoral level knowledge of clinical or counselling psychology including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology, models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, and two or more distinct psychological therapies
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group and mental health
• Knowledge of our business and how it supports patient care
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• A high level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level complex, highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult-to-treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnosis)
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies, which have an evidence base
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health

Experience

Essential

• Experience of delivering full Dialectical Behaviour
• Assessed experience of working as a qualified psychologist for a minimum of four years, including at least 3 years post qualification experience with adults in secondary care
• Experience of working with a wide variety of clients and carers, presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings, including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems
• Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
• Experience of delivering evidence-based psychological therapies to service users in secondary care settings
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan .

Desirable

• Experience of professional management of qualified and pre-qualified clinical and or counselling psychologists
• Experience of representing psychology or psychotherapy within the context of multi-disciplinary care
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care setting
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts

Training & Qualification

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology or alternative training outside of the UK that is recognised by the Health & Care Professions Council leading to registration in the UK as a Clinical or Counselling psychologist.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS/HCPC
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists / psychological therapists
• To be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council under the appropriate domain specific title
• Intensively trained in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (10 day training) or its equivalent

Desirable

• Post-doctoral/graduate training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice
• Post Graduate Diploma in DBT
• Registered with the Society for DBT

Employer details

Employer name

South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

Address

Springfield University Hospital

15 Springfield Drive

London

SW17 0YF

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

294-COMM-6637117-JB