Cognitive Behavioural Therapist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Job Summary

1. As a qualified psychological therapist/CBT Therapist, assumes accountability for own professional actions and works independently and according to a plan and objectives agreed and reviewed with line manager, and within the overall framework of relevant trust/team/service area policies and procedures, the professional codes of practice of the HCPC or relevant professional body, BABCP and terms and conditions of employment.

2. Provides direct clinical services to clients, families and other carers, undertaking assessments and providing individual and group based psychological intervention as appropriate and required.

3. Facilitates the dissemination of effective evidence informed psychological practice within the team/service and teams in the Trust by supporting the use of psychologically informed protocols, guidelines and procedures by other members of the MDT.

4. Participates in supervision, personal appraisal and continuing professional development activities as agreed

5. In completing duties, draws upon on a highly developed specialist knowledge base commensurate with core mental health profession and further Post Graduate Diploma i.e. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and registration with the BABCP and appropriate professional body

6. In completing agreed duties, plans, organises and prioritises own time, activities and workload (manages own clinical caseload, plans group sessions, plans and organises teaching and research activities, organises administrative responsibilities, etc).

Main Duties/Responsibilities

Clinical:

1. Undertakes specialist psychological assessments of complex cases, assessing personality, beliefs, attitudes, behaviour, emotional function, and other relevant psychological characteristics and dimensions and factors relevant to the development, maintenance and understanding of the clients difficulties as appropriate, using standardised psychometric instruments, protocol based assessment tools, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and structured and semi-structured interviews as required.

2. Scores, collates, analyses, interprets and reports findings of psychological assessments undertaken with clients and others, integrating complex data (obtained using a variety of measures and techniques and collected from a variety of sources) within an appropriate interpretational framework.

3. Develops complex formulations of the clients difficulties, drawing upon the findings of psychological assessments, relevant aspects of the case history and relevant psychological models, concepts and theory.

4. Develops and implements complex plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of the clients presenting problems, that are based upon specialist knowledge and an appropriate conceptual framework, that employ psychological procedures and practices having an evidence base for their efficacy and/or an established theoretical basis for their use and that are provided across the full range of care settings.

5. Maintains a case load of clients for therapy, the size of which is agreed with the service lead line manager and psychology lead, and delivers psychological treatments and therapeutic/management interventions to fidelity, protocol guidelines or appropriate professional standards, for individual clients.

6. Delivers therapeutic groups as appropriate

7. Together with other team members as appropriate, provides support and advice to the families and carers of people with mental health and psychological problems referred to the team/service area, offering behavioural family therapy or using other approaches where appropriate and supporting and enabling the delivery of intervention programmes by relatives/carers as appropriate.

8. Undertakes risk assessments from a psychological perspective, provides psychologically based programmes of risk management for individual clients and provides advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.

9. In completing clinical duties, exercises autonomous professional responsibility for the psychological assessment and treatment, and discharge from psychological care, of referred clients and clients seen in accordance with work plan agreed with psychology line manager.

10. When completing clinical duties, receives, obtains and communicates highly complicated, extremely sensitive and highly contentious assessment, formulation and treatment related clinical and personal information, sometimes in emotionally charged, hostile or otherwise challenging circumstances, where there may be constraints on the engagement, motivation, cooperation, acceptance, tolerance or understanding of the service users involved or their families.

11. Attends and contributes to appropriate multi-disciplinary assessment meetings, case conferences, reviews, etc, providing professional advice on individual care planning and other clinical matters as necessary and providing a psychological perspective or psychological information as required.

12. Directly and indirectly promotes and supports a psychologically informed and evidence based approach to the understanding and management of the problems and needs of all clients across all settings within the service area covered.

13. Undertakes, if appropriate and agreed with psychology lead, evidence informed project work in respect of a special clinical need, clinical group or clinical problem of relevance to the MDT and service as a whole.

Policy, Service Development, Service/Resource Management, Recruitment and Professional Leadership

1. Contributes to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, by attendance (in accordance with agreed work plan) at meetings at which service developments are planned and discussed and through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

4. Draws the attention of professional line manager and other service managers to unmet needs and shortfalls in the availability of psychological services, offers suggestions about service initiatives and developments and advises managers on other aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters require attention.

5. Supports psychology team in the co-ordination and day-to-day management of the workloads of Assistant Practitioners, graduate psychologists and undergraduates on placement, and supervises Assistants, graduates and students as required.

6. Responsible for careful and responsible use, transport and storage of material resources as allocated (including test materials and equipment, books, stationery and IT equipment).

Professional Development and Practice

1. Meets and upholds the standards of practice of the Health and Care Professions Council or other appropriate professional regulatory body, Trust policies and procedures and terms and conditions of employment.

2. Responsible for working within limits appropriate to qualifications, competence and experience and for professional self-governance in accordance with professional standards of practice and Trust policies and procedures.

3. In common with all psychological therapists, receives regular clinical and professional supervision from an appropriately experienced Psychological Therapist (and if appropriate other senior professional colleagues), in accordance with the HCPC standards of practice, informed by the BPS Code of Conduct and Trust Psychological Service policy or BABCP and code of conduct for the core profession.

4. Participates in annual personal development/appraisal reviews with the designated psychology line manager.

5. In accordance with HCPC/BABCP Guidelines for CPD and Trust Psychological Service policy, undertakes such programmes of internal and external CPD, personal development and training as may be agreed with the postholders professional manager at the beginning of the appointment and at subsequent appraisal reviews, ensuring thereby that the post-holder maintains the highest professional standards of practice when fulfilling their duties and responsibilities and that they contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service.

6. Maintains active engagement with current developments in the field of psychology and related disciplines, gains wider experience of professional psychological practice, continues to develop skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner and further develops skills and competencies that assist in the performance of current duties and prepare for future duties and responsibilities, through attendance at training events, attendance at special interest groups and relevant clinical forums, reading relevant research and practice literature, visits to other service settings, etc, as well as through regular professional supervision and appraisal.

7. Develops skills in clinical supervision via completion of relevant programmes of training, thereby achieving eligibility to independently supervise other clinical staff.

8. Maintains the highest standards of clinical record keeping (including electronic data entry) and report writing in accordance with professional codes of practice and Trust policies and procedures.

9. Attends and contributes to Directorate and such other Trust-wide psychological service meetings as may be organised.

10. Advises officers to whom they are accountable if post holder believes they have been allocated responsibilities that exceed their level of competence or experience, if they have been allocated a workload they consider unreasonably excessive, if they identify CPD needs relevant to duties they are asked to undertake, or if they otherwise require support.

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications

Essential

• A specialist post-graduate (or equivalent) qualification in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) i.e. MSc, or Post Graduate Diploma.
• Registered health or social care qualification- RMN, OT, Social Worker etc or qualified CBT Therapist
• Accreditation with the BABCP (or working towards this) if a CBT Therapist
• Additional training e.g. PG Cert Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (Personality Disorder/Psychosis)

Desirable

• A qualification, or have undertaken a program of formal training in Clinical Supervision (e.g. completion of a specialist Clinical Supervision Module).
• Additional training in CBPT associated psychotherapies, e.g. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy

Experience

Essential

• Relevant post registration experience in mental health.
• Skills and experience of working with, assessing, planning, co-ordinating and supporting people with mental health problems in a community setting around a range of emotional/mental health, behavioural /additional health or developmental needs / substance misuse needs.
• Experience of working with people who have difficulty in engaging with services and have complex mental health needs.

Knowledge

Essential

• Understanding by the post holder of their responsibilities under the Care programme Approach, Clinical Governance, Risk Assessment and Safeguarding.

Desirable

• Skills and knowledge in utilising specific assessments and outcome measures.
• Understanding of other psychological interventions/professions relevant to CAMHS/Adult Mental Health

Skills/Personal qualities

Essential

• Ability to analyse and present complex information to professional colleagues.
• Maintain Clinical Supervision and a balance of Continued Professional Development to fulfil BABCP requirements for continued accreditation if relevant.
• Effective Communication both written & verbal.
• Ability to inspire confidence in service users, carers and senior and junior staff.
• Ability to prioritise workload.
• Commitment and a positive attitude to client group.
• Enthusiasm and motivation.
• Demonstrate a commitment to personal development including ability to be self-reflective, whilst working with service users, in own personal and professional development and in supervision.
• Flexible approach to meeting the needs of the service.
• Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of clinical/managerial/academic supervision.
• Team player, integrity, negotiation skills, good time management/organisation skills.
• Work with people with highly complex or distressing mental health problems.
• Able to contain and work with organisational stress, and possess the ability to hold the stress of others.
• To be able to work flexibly with regard to location and hours.
• To be able to travel independently.

Desirable

• Supervisory skills
• Personal experience of mental health difficulties (self, family or friends).

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Jobs are Pan-Trust

Wolverhampton or Oldbury, West Midlands

WV1 1SH

Employer's website

https://www.blackcountryhealthcare.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)