Principal Clinical Psychologist - Learning Disabilities

Job responsibilities

To provide clinical leadership and direction in the continual development and provision of excellence in applied psychology for the Learning Disability care hub. To ensure the provision of a high-quality clinical psychology pathway. To provide highly specialized psychological assessment whilst offering advice and consultation on service users psychological care to other colleagues and different professional groups. To contribute to research, audit, policy, and service development. To propose and implement policy changes within the areas served. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Trusts policies and procedures. To provide clinical supervision and consultation to individuals and groups of staff across the learning disability care hub, including psychology staff. To provide support and cover for the provision of psychology services across the care hub footprint. To play an active role in the promotion of psychology and representation of learning disability practitioner psychologists across the care hub and wider systems. To work as part of a multi-disciplinary team. To develop and engage in pathway development, ensuring the application of trauma informed models of care, using least restrictive practice.Clinical:To lead on care planning for service users in receipt of psychology and engage with their families and carers. To undertake highly specialist psychological assessments based upon the appropriate use and interpretation of complex data from various sources. To undertake clinical duties as necessary to support the psychology offer within the Learning Disabilities care hub. To develop psychological formulations of complex difficulties to inform the teams understanding, treatment, and management of these difficulties; discharge planning; and when appropriate recommendations for further assessment and intervention after discharge. To provide appropriate structured psychological interventions and psychological therapies. To support the development and delivery of therapeutic, psychoeducational or skills development groups as need dictates. To harness and support the development of psychosocial skills of other team members by providing clinical supervision, consultation, training and liaison work and opportunities for co-working. To develop and maintain appropriate psychosocial supervision frameworks. To contribute to the appropriate risk assessment and risk management by providing training and consultation to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management. To promote team working and constructive relationships with multi-disciplinary colleagues. To collaborate with the multi-disciplinary teams across the care hub on the development of best practice. To promote a trauma informed model of care across the care hub. To provide support, leadership and containment for colleagues working across the care hub. To consider and proactively support staffs wellbeing, including facilitation of debriefs following any incidents and facilitating reflective practice sessions as need dictates.Teaching, Training, and Supervision:To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies, and experience to contribute effectively to good psychological care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies. To gain highly specialised/extended expertise in particular psychological approaches and/or with client groups and/or in management through further specialist supervision and experience supported by a programme of professional development as identified in an agreed personal development plan. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical line management supervision to psychology staff working in the unit and the wider care hub. To provide advice, consultation, training, and clinical supervision to other professionals for their provision of psychologically informed assessment and psychologically based interventions. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology as appropriate.To maintain and develop skills in pre-and post-graduate training andTo contribute to personal development / performance reviews for psychology staff across the care hub. To actively participate in continuing professional development involving a variety of activities including attending seminars, conferences, reading and courses. To be responsible for maintaining up to date records of any CPD or mandatory training activities undertaken.Management, Recruitment, Policy, and Service Development:To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service for the care hub including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.To exercise responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the teams, whether in the form of other qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials used in the assessment and treatment of adults, families, and carers. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the care hub. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistants, clinical associates in psychology, and qualified clinical psychologists.Research and Service Evaluation:To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician in the evaluation, monitoring and development of aspects of the teams clinical practice, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high-quality care.To utilise theory, evidence-based literature, and research to support evidence- based practice in individual work and work with other team members. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research. To initiate project management working in conjunction with the care hub Project Manager, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to service users and their families.Service User, Carer and Stakeholder Involvement:To promote a person-centred service philosophy for service users and carers. Ensure, as far as practicable, the full involvement of service users and where appropriate, relatives and carers in the assessment of service user needs and the formulation and review of their care plans. Promote user and carer involvement in the recruitment and training of staff.Promote user and Carer involvement in the evaluation and development of service

Education / Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology, (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS
• Current registration as a clinical psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council

Desirable

• Completion of further post qualification training within psychological therapies (e.g. DBT, CBT, CAT, CFT, MBT etc.).

Experience

Essential

• Experience of clinical leadership within a previous role.
• Demonstrable experience of providing clinical supervision to psychologists, psychological therapists or other core health professions.
• Demonstrable experience of providing teaching/ training upon clinical interventions.
• Demonstrable experience of managing demand for psychological services and supporting other professionals in their provision of direct psychosocial work

Knowledge

Essential

• Knowledge of the national and regional legislation, guidance and policy directives in relation to the development and delivery of psychological therapies with people with a Learning Disability
• Knowledge of legal frameworks, other guidance and processes around safeguarding adults.
• Knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act, Mental Health Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards.
• Knowledge of relevant national and local service drivers for transformation and service development within Learning Disability services.
• Evidence of post- qualification CPD as recommended and/or accredited by the BPS, or other professional body.
• Up to date knowledge of evidence based psychological practices for adults with a Learning Disability
• Awareness of the principles of a trauma informed care approach

Desirable

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies and approaches for adults with a Learning Disability
• Publication of training, service evaluation, clinical audit and research material.

Skills and Abilities

Essential

• Familiarity with computing technology, including keyboard skills, and use of word-processing, e-mail, and internet software
• Ability to work with service users, carers and families to engage with their needs and provide them with appropriate psychological support and intervention
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non professional group
• Well developed, effective communication skills, both oral and in writing, enabling complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to be shared with service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues within the NHS and other agencies.
• Ability to prioritise work, operate a waiting list, meet short deadlines and an unpredictable work pattern that requires regular revision of plans
• Ability to sit in constrained position for service user assessment, formulation, individual and group therapy sessions and for computer work.
• Ability to work at a high level of professional autonomy and responsibility, in a collaborative multi- disciplinary environment and also as a lone worker in circumstances where there may be exposure to verbal and sometimes physical aggression.
• Able to sustain the intense concentration necessary for service user assessment and formulation, individual and group therapy sessions.
• Ability to work and communicate highly sensitive, contentious information effectively in a highly emotive or hostile atmosphere, and to overcome barriers to acceptance/psychological resistance to potentially threatening information
• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to staff and carers exposed to highly distressing situations.
• 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.

Desirable

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials, suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to demonstrate an area of special interest/skill in therapeutic intervention.
• Ability to move equipment (including case files, bulky neuropsychological tests, self-help materials, audio-visual equipment) between office base and other work settings

Work Related Circumstances

Essential

• Use of a car or access to a means of mobility to travel across the Trust footprint in line with service needs
• Willing to carry out all duties and responsibilities of the post in accordance with the Trust's Equal Opportunities and Equality and Diversity policies
• Appointments to regulated and controlled activities require an enhanced DBS disclosure.

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).