Job summary
We are seeking a committed and experienced practitioner from any mental health profession, or with equivalent training and expertise with people with complex psychosis. You will be working in our supportive, innovative Community Rehabilitation team, which enables service users with psychosis and complex needs to lead fulfilling lives in their local communities.
At West London NHS Trust we want to employ talented, passionate and skilled professionals, so that we can provide the best service possible to those who use our services.
In return, we invest in and support our staff. In this role, we offer:
- A place on the PGDip in CBT for Psychosis at UCL, leading to BACP accreditation as a CBT therapist.
- The opportunity to train while working full time, with the course built into your job role.
- Progression to a Band 7 CBT therapist post on successful completion of the programme.
- Close support with your CBT practice from psychologists in the team.
- A stable, supportive, and dynamic working environment
- A small and friendly MDT, passionate about working with people with psychosis and additional complex needs.
- A values driven environment - Togetherness, Responsibility, Excellence and Caring underpin how we treat each other and our patients
- Regular line management and supervision
- We welcome a broad range of professional experience (e.g. range of core professions; 3rd sector experience; expertise in dual diagnosis or supported living environments).
Main duties of the job
You will provide a psychology service to clients of the Community Rehabilitation Team who are experiencing psychosis and additional needs, e.g. helping them to understand and manage voices and unusual beliefs, and working with mood, anxiety, trauma and substance misuse. You will provide specialist CBT therapy, with close supervision, and will facilitate groups with other staff and service users. The role includes working with clients to create a shared understanding of their difficulties and goals and communicating these, where appropriate, to carers and professional teams. You will provide advice on clients' psychological care to MDT colleagues and supported housing staff, and contributing to MDT work including carrying out assessments for the service and co-working with colleagues.
Skills and experience in working with clients with psychosis and complex needs in community settings, and in working in partnership with professional carers and other colleagues are essential.
We require a genuine commitment to MDT partnership working and psychological approaches to recovery and least restrictive practice for clients with the highest levels of need, a commitment to developing as a CBT therapist with a complex client group where flexibility and adaptation is needed, and an ability to manage the challenges of concurrently working and studying.
About us
West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK. 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.
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'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 much enriched by a diverse workforce and we are committed to equality, diversity and anti-racism. We are keen to ensure that our workforce reflects the community it serves, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ and lived experience of psychological distress.
Job description
Job responsibilities
You will be based in the Armstrong Way Team Base, Southall and will travel to community sites across the London Borough of Ealing.
Local Amenities and Transport Links
There are good transport links serving the team base which is located centrally to the borough of Ealing, close to Ealing Hospital. Southall Station on the Elizabeth Line is close by and served by trains every 15 minutes. The Elizabeth Line serves stations from Reading and Heathrow in the west across London, through central London all the way to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.
The team base is a short bus ride from Brentford Station (south-west rail to Clapham Junction, Waterloo and Hounslow); Boston Manor Tube Station (Piccadilly Line); and Ealing Broadway Tube Station (District, Central Lines).
There is a beautiful local canal and park nearby and several local shops.
This role will include working with people from varied cultural backgrounds and ages, using interpreters when necessary; and you will be passionate about the role of psychology in supporting clients with psychosis to live fulfilling lives in their local communities.
Please see the attached Job Pack for full details about this role.
Job description
Job responsibilities
You will be based in the Armstrong Way Team Base, Southall and will travel to community sites across the London Borough of Ealing.
Local Amenities and Transport Links
There are good transport links serving the team base which is located centrally to the borough of Ealing, close to Ealing Hospital. Southall Station on the Elizabeth Line is close by and served by trains every 15 minutes. The Elizabeth Line serves stations from Reading and Heathrow in the west across London, through central London all the way to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.
The team base is a short bus ride from Brentford Station (south-west rail to Clapham Junction, Waterloo and Hounslow); Boston Manor Tube Station (Piccadilly Line); and Ealing Broadway Tube Station (District, Central Lines).
There is a beautiful local canal and park nearby and several local shops.
This role will include working with people from varied cultural backgrounds and ages, using interpreters when necessary; and you will be passionate about the role of psychology in supporting clients with psychosis to live fulfilling lives in their local communities.
Please see the attached Job Pack for full details about this role.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- A recorded/registered qualification in one of the following at graduate level: in mental health/learning disability nursing, social work, counselling (accredited level), occupational therapy, psychotherapy, arts therapy. Please see the BABCP website for more detail of accepted qualifications.
- Evidence of meeting the Knowledge Skills and Attitude (KSA) requirements of BABCP through other training and qualifications (e.g. training as a dual diagnosis practitioner; training and qualifications obtained through work with a 3rd sector provider specialist in supported living, or complex mental health needs)
Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience in the individual's profession in a setting and with a client group related to complex psychosis and/or community rehabilitation.
- Substantial equivalent experience with a client group overlapping with complex psychosis and/or community rehabilitation, e.g. gained through a senior, direct support, client-facing role in a third sector organisation working with substance misuse, homelessness, offender support, complex mental health, or refugees. N.B: in either case, the applicant will need to demonstrate meeting the Knowledge Skills and Attitude (KSA) requirements of BABCP
Knowledge
Essential
- Specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychosis and complex additional needs e.g. other mental health problems, substance misuse, homelessness, marginalisation.
- Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of assessment and intervention in complex mental health difficulties, neurodevelopmental and/or neuropsychological difficulties.
- Knowledge of relevant legislation and its implications for work in the current setting
Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Excellent engagement and verbal communication skills, including with persons who may be highly distressed, hostile and/or experience barriers in relationships and communication.
- Able to make complex clinical judgements both alone and with MDT or supervisory consultation, at an appropriate level.
- Able to plan, prioritise and organise own workload, including clinical, administrative and other aspects.
- Able to independently manage the competing demands of course attendance, assignments and allocated tasks in the workplace.
- Able to function in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g. in dealing with service users with serious mental illness, histories of homicide and serious violence, self-harm, sexual abuse).
- Strong written communication skills
- Ability to achieve the academic demands of the course.
Other Requirements
Essential
- Demonstrable enthusiasm for and commitment to working with service users with psychosis and highly complex levels of need.
- Demonstrable enthusiasm for and commitment to partnership working with MDT colleagues and community and 3rd sector partners
- Demonstrable enthusiasm for training as a CBT therapist with clients with psychosis and complex needs.
- Must be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct
- Able to reflect on own professional practice
- Willing to participate actively in the training programme and manage competing demands to completion
- 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.
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- A recorded/registered qualification in one of the following at graduate level: in mental health/learning disability nursing, social work, counselling (accredited level), occupational therapy, psychotherapy, arts therapy. Please see the BABCP website for more detail of accepted qualifications.
- Evidence of meeting the Knowledge Skills and Attitude (KSA) requirements of BABCP through other training and qualifications (e.g. training as a dual diagnosis practitioner; training and qualifications obtained through work with a 3rd sector provider specialist in supported living, or complex mental health needs)
Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience in the individual's profession in a setting and with a client group related to complex psychosis and/or community rehabilitation.
- Substantial equivalent experience with a client group overlapping with complex psychosis and/or community rehabilitation, e.g. gained through a senior, direct support, client-facing role in a third sector organisation working with substance misuse, homelessness, offender support, complex mental health, or refugees. N.B: in either case, the applicant will need to demonstrate meeting the Knowledge Skills and Attitude (KSA) requirements of BABCP
Knowledge
Essential
- Specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychosis and complex additional needs e.g. other mental health problems, substance misuse, homelessness, marginalisation.
- Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of assessment and intervention in complex mental health difficulties, neurodevelopmental and/or neuropsychological difficulties.
- Knowledge of relevant legislation and its implications for work in the current setting
Skills & Abilities
Essential
- Excellent engagement and verbal communication skills, including with persons who may be highly distressed, hostile and/or experience barriers in relationships and communication.
- Able to make complex clinical judgements both alone and with MDT or supervisory consultation, at an appropriate level.
- Able to plan, prioritise and organise own workload, including clinical, administrative and other aspects.
- Able to independently manage the competing demands of course attendance, assignments and allocated tasks in the workplace.
- Able to function in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g. in dealing with service users with serious mental illness, histories of homicide and serious violence, self-harm, sexual abuse).
- Strong written communication skills
- Ability to achieve the academic demands of the course.
Other Requirements
Essential
- Demonstrable enthusiasm for and commitment to working with service users with psychosis and highly complex levels of need.
- Demonstrable enthusiasm for and commitment to partnership working with MDT colleagues and community and 3rd sector partners
- Demonstrable enthusiasm for training as a CBT therapist with clients with psychosis and complex needs.
- Must be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct
- Able to reflect on own professional practice
- Willing to participate actively in the training programme and manage competing demands to completion
- 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.
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
