Are you interested in a role where every day is different and where you can use a variety of psychology skills? If so, we are looking for a caring and innovative clinical psychologist to join us in our Specialist Older Adult Mental Health Service (SOAMHS) for people over 70 with complex needs. You will work directly with people with complex mental health needs with a variety of presentations either individually or in groups. The service works closely with our new therapy led service for older people with mild to moderate needs. To enable people to move between different teams in our expanded services, experiences, ideas, and resources are shared.

The London Borough of Hounslow is culturally highly diverse and there is a real commitment to meet the needs of the communities we serve. You will therefore be involved in ensuring psychology provision is appropriate and accessible for this diverse community and outreach activities are encouraged.

Main duties of the job

The service supports people with a wide range of difficulties and the whole service works within a Trauma Informed model. Although the psychology team works with psychological therapies with a proven evidence base, we also understand that to truly meet client needs, flexibility of approach is essential.

Our service users come from a wide variety of cultures and experiences, so there is a need to adapt any therapy to the needs of the client and creativity is therefore valued.

There is also an emphasis on working with staff, through supervision, consultation, training and joint working to increase psychological thinking within the team and to maximize the potential for improving the psychological well-being of all patients and carers. We are also expanding the involvement of service users and carers/family and friends in the development of our service and there is a focus on improving access for people from underrepresented groups (eg LGBTQ+, BAME).

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.

The regulations mandating vaccination for in-scope roles in the NHS have now been removed. The Trust does however continue to encourage and support staff to be vaccinated as this remains the best line of defence against COVID19. Vaccination data will be collected by our recruitment team during your on-boarding if you are happy to provide a copy of your COVID pass.

Job description Job responsibilities

The Hounslow SOAMHS team is warm, welcoming and supportive and values the different perspective that psychology can bring to working with clients and their support networks.

You will have regular individual supervision from an experienced Clinical Psychologist and be part of a strong local psychology service working within Older Peoples Mental Health Services. You would also have access to wider Trust resources for continuing professional development. The Trust values training highly and will support you with external training programs such as EMDR if needed for the role. The Trust is developing a wide range of resources for staff wellbeing and actively promotes inclusivity in its staff and aims for our teams to reflect the diverse communities that we serve.

Research activity is also encouraged and well supported within the service with a dedicated research team sharing the services offices.

Person Specification Qualifications and Training Essential

• Good honors degree (2:1 minimum) in Psychology. Eligibility for graduate membership of BPS.
• Post-graduate doctorate in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 or those in lateral transfer) as accredited by the BPS.
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council.

Desirable

• Other related academic qualifications.
• Evidence of additional training in psychological therapy techniques.

Experience Essential

• Experience of working with older people

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of having facilitated/co-facilitated psychological therapy groups.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.

Knowledge Essential

• Specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychology applied to clinical practice.
• Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of the assessment and treatment of a range of mental health conditions.
• Able to provide and receive complex, sensitive or contentious information, where there are significant barriers to acceptance which need to be overcome using the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills such as would be required when communicating in a hostile, antagonistic or highly emotive atmosphere
• Able to plan, prioritise and organise own service user caseload, treatment programmes (individual or group) involving other staff and other aspects of the work such as research activity.
• 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.
• Able to use database, word processing and test administration/scoring software.
• Evidence of continuing professional development

Desirable

• Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of assessment and intervention with families.
• Able to speak other languages present in local communities such as Hindi, Punjabi or Polish

Personal Qualities Essential

• Able to adapt to rapidly changing service demands
• Able to maintain intense concentration frequently and for prolonged periods with unpredictable patients (e.g., in the assessment and treatment of patients with complex difficulties).
• Able to function in potentially traumatic circumstances and in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g., in dealing with patients with serious mental illness, violence, self- harm, sexual abuse).

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

222-LS-OPMHS-89-A