Job responsibilities
Job Summary:
As a lead specialist, responsible for
assessment and treatment of own specialist caseload of clients with variety of
complex problems including complex trauma, dissociation, psychosis and other
severe mental health problems.
As a lead specialist, responsible for
providing, developing and managing highly specialist psychological
interventions to clients and for communicating psychological formulations and
treatment plans to carers and professional colleagues.
Responsible for planning, organising and
auditing and developing policy and strategies for the delivery of a specialist
psychology service within the multidisciplinary team.
The post holder would be expected to
develop specialist responsibilities and provide leadership from a psychological
perspective on a specific area of expertise that balances their experience,
interests, and needs of the service.
Responsible for providing professional
support, guidance and clinical supervision to other clinical psychology staff
(clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists, MHWP,
CAPS, undergraduate placement students) in the psychiatric liaison team and in
other parts of the service as required by their level of experience.
Responsible for the planning, delivery
and clinical supervision of a specialist clinical training placement for
trainees on the postgraduate Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology from the
University of Plymouth.
Responsible for providing specialist
consultation, advice and clinical supervision to other non-psychology staff within
the service, on psychological understanding, interventions and evaluations.
Responsible for developing and
delivering teaching on psychological work and care for trainee clinical psychologists
and qualified members of clinical psychology and other professions in Livewell
Southwest.
Responsible for initiating and
maintaining research and development projects relevant to furthering both clinical
knowledge and service evaluation and delivery.
Responsible for working within the
Guidelines for Professional Practice of the Health & Care Professions
Council and the British Psychological Society Division of Clinical Psychology
or ACP-UK, and for adhering to policies and procedures of Livewell Southwest.
Responsible for participating in an
annual appraisal with the SORT or CMHT Consultant Clinical Psychologist plus a team
manager.
Responsible for continuing professional
development (CPD) in line with the annual appraisal Professional Development
Plan PDP, the Knowledge and Skills Framework KSF and the HCPC requirements
for CPD.
Responsible for keeping aware of and
being knowledgeable about current developments within the profession of clinical
psychology.
Responsible for keeping up to date with
legislation, national directives, policies and NICE guidelines in relation to
the work.
Clinical Skills:
To possess and practice a very high
level of communication and relationship skills in situations where emotional
distress, and risk of self-harm and of life-threatening behaviour can be
expected.
To engage clients with complex
presentations in a therapeutic alliance and maintain this through periods of
doubt and relapse.
To work with, and support others to work
with, clients with complex trauma, emotional disorders and psychosis for whom psychological
expertise is required in order to provide appropriate assessment, testing,
rehabilitation and/or maintain placement, contributing to the liaison with commissioners
and funding managers to provide feedback and advice on such clients progress
and ongoing needs.
To evaluate and make decisions about
treatment options taking into account theoretical and therapeutic models,
highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have
shaped the individual, family or group and available resources.
To formulate and implement plans for the
formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients cognitive,
behavioural and emotional sequelae of trauma for Psychiatric Liaison clients.
To be able to complete the most
appropriate formal psychometric assessments with complex clients.
To be able to communicate complex psychological
formulations and treatment plans to the client and to appropriate professional
colleagues and to family members or carers, as appropriate, so that they are
understood.
As part of the psychiatric liaison
assessment process, to develop a psychological formulation of a clients problems
that enables a healthy, holistic discussion of treatment options.
To prepare and provide complex medico-legal
reports and reports for housing and employing bodies.
To have knowledge of and skill within
several psychological models of understanding and managing behavior, including,
for example, cognitive behaviour therapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and systemic
therapy.
Through consultation or case discussion
with MDT colleagues, to be able to add both an understanding of psychosocial
factors and offer advice as to an appropriate intervention for clients referred
to the services but not on psychologists caseload. In this way support the implementation of a
Trauma-Informed model throughout our services.
Create and monitor effective and
efficient referral criteria and pathways to Clinical Psychology from all services.
To be able to manage the emotional
impact of working, often one-to-one, with people who can be in crisis and who
can show high levels of arousal and can be actively self-harming or suicidal.
To ensure receipt of clinical and
personal supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines for all
clinical psychologists.
Policy and Service Development:
To be responsible for promoting the need
to plan and develop specialist psychology services within the psychiatric
liaison service.
Through membership of the psychology
specialty, to be responsible for contributing to the planning and development
of specialist psychology services across the service.
As a member of the psychiatric liaison
service to be responsible for promoting the need to plan and develop the
multidisciplinary response to clinical demands and expectations on it.
To attend the Psychology meetings and
other relevant meetings regularly.
Human Resources:
To be responsible for providing clinical
supervision and professional support and guidance as required to Clinical
Psychologists, CAPS, MHWP and trainee clinical psychologists within the service
who are less experienced.
To be responsible for providing clinical
supervision to non clinical psychology members of the service as appropriate.
To be responsible for planning and
supervising the work of undergraduate psychology students on year long and
short term placements.
To be responsible for the supervision of
the work of Assistant Psychologists.
To be responsible for planning and
providing a clinical training placement to trainees on the postgraduate
Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology of the University of Plymouth. This clinical placement requires liaison with
Human Resources to arrange appropriate DBS checks, honorary contracts and IT access
as well as completion of Livewell Southwest and service inductions. It also requires a sensitive awareness to the
impact on trainees of induction to being members of a large and complex organisation
as the context for learning and practising their professional skills.
To teach on the postgraduate Doctoral
Courses in Clinical Psychology at the University of Plymouth if required and on
pre and post qualification professional courses for other disciplines
represented within Livewell Southwest as required.
To ensure the
development, maintenance and dissemination of the highest professional standards
of practice, through active participation in internal and external Continuing
Professional Development - CPD training and development programmes and courses.
Research and Development:
To conduct and supervise research and
audit and evaluation relevant to the provision of specialist psychological
services for people accessing the psychiatric liaison service.
To initiate and implement project management
techniques and tools in order to achieve completion of evaluations, audits,
research and service developments.
To collaborate with University of
Plymouth in setting up and conducting Doctoral level long-term research
projects on psychiatric liaison, and providing teaching.
To use SPSS and other packages in the
analysis of data and to write up the information in a meaningful format that is
accessible and understood by the target audience.
To prepare and present information from
audits, evaluations and research to professional audiences within and outside
the organisation.
To prepare papers for publication based
on audit, evaluation, research and development work.
To utilise theory, evidence based literature
and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work
with team members in the service and Clinical Psychology
Information Technology:
To contribute to the maintenance and
development of office systems and procedures within clinical psychology and the wider service.
To be able to use a range of software
packages including Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and SPSS.
To be responsible for maintaining
appropriate service statistics and records of work within the requirement of
policies covering Care Programme Approach and its successor.
To ensure that electronic CPA (and its
successor) and System One and other relevant computer data bases are kept
up-to-date.
