Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

My job makes better lives: by promoting health and independence for people who use our services and their carers/support staff by delivering high quality Psychology assessments, formulation and interventions; providing consultation, supervision and guidance to Band 7, Trainee, Assistant Psychologists, and non-Psychology professionals (including Police Officers) as required.

Job Overview:

To assess, plan, implement and evaluate the Psychological needs of people using our services.

To mentor, supervise and teach qualified and unqualified mental health staff and other professionals.

Promoting a Psychological perspective both within teams and sharing with other colleagues.

Work collaboratively with team managers/Clinical leads in the development and delivering of effective services.

The postholder will be expected to work flexibly within the service.

To lead on complex and challenging cases and develop expertise within area of specialism.

Leading on a specific service development/Quality Improvement projects.

Promoting staff safety and welfare.

Suitable for someone who is interested in and passionate about providing high quality leadership and Psychological support to people using our service and their carers.

Key Responsibilities

To be responsible for the systematic provision of specialist Psychology services (where appropriate) to adults with complex and acute mental health difficulties within the PICU, based at Farnham Road Hospital.

To carry out comprehensive psychological and cognitive assessments and formulation, plan implement and evaluate delivery of psychology interventions and consultations to support people with specific and complex needs.

To undertake high quality direct (individual therapy, and groups) and indirect (consultative, support planning, and evaluative) specialist Psychological interventions; making autonomous clinical decisions about own professional practice.

To formulate and implement plans of specialist Psychological treatment or management of clients mental health problems based on an appropriate multi-factorial understanding of the clients problems and current evidence-based best practice, taking into account the current NICE guidelines.

To ensure the clinical effectiveness of own practice and of service functioning by undertaking audit, research and service development activities relevant to the service area.

To be professionally and legally responsible and accountable for all aspects of clinical work and care. To maintain high standards of care in all areas of practice in accordance with the HCPC Code of Conduct, professional guidelines and Trust Policies and Procedures. To act within the Mental Health Act and Mental Capacity Act (2005). To be aware of and implement Safeguarding Adult and Child Protection Policies, Procedures and legislation.

To actively involve people in developing and agreeing their own care plan, to act as an advocate and ensure that there is proper regard for their dignity, choice, self-esteem, racial, cultural, sexual and religious needs and preferences.

To work creatively to adapt verbal and written communication to meet the needs of people who use our services.

To undertake comprehensive risk assessments and develop effective risk management plans for people with complex needs.

To establish and maintain effective partnerships and relationships with colleagues, other agencies, people who use services and their carers, and support staff.

To develop and provide a range of specialist teaching/training packages which can be delivered to a range of multi-disciplinary audiences.

To act as practice assessor/supervisor/teacher in teaching, facilitating and supporting pre registration students and junior personnel and to participate in the audit of educational placements.

To practice within a Positive Behaviour Support and trauma informed care framework.

To facilitate Team Formulation and undertake indirect interventions (Functional Analyses based on behavioural observation and analysis of complex behavioural data).

To facilitate Reflective Practice for multi-disciplinary staff teams as appropriate.

To participate in multi-disciplinary meetings concerned with the delivery and development of clinical services and to contribute a Psychological perspective as appropriate.

To contribute to the development and implementation of appropriate policies, protocols and care pathways.

To contribute to initiatives to ensure that the diverse needs of people within the care group are addressed within local services and future developments.

To be responsible for relevant data collection on work activities, inputting data onto the Trust databases as required, and to maintain a high standard of clinical record keeping.

To research national best practice and enable services to benchmark practice against nationally recognised standards - in partnership with people who use our services and their carers.

To conduct and lead on clinical audit, quality assurance and research, maintaining current knowledge of research findings and development within specific care group.

To carry out such other duties as the Acute Service Manager and the Acute Lead Psychologist/Locality Lead Psychologist may reasonably request.

To undertake violence reduction training to develop skills to be able to respond to local alarms when raised, assisting with restraint to keep people on the wards safe.

To contain and work with organisational stress and to have the ability to hold the stress of others whilst working with a caseload size in line with service needs.

To reflect on personal emotions that may impact on the clinical work in clinical supervision.

To manage frequent exposure to unpredictable working conditions including demanding and verbally aggressive clients and to deal with occasional physical aggression.

Note: This job description will be reviewed regularly in the light of changing service requirements and any such changes will be discussed with the post holder.

For more information, please refer to the attached Job Decription

Person Specification

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups across the whole life course and with presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity (including complex/severe mental health needs population).
• Experience of specialist Psychological assessment and treatment across care settings.
• Maintenance of a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems, and distressed behaviours of persons using the service.
• Experience of contributing to clinical practice/service development/project work.
• Experience of delivering supervision.
• Demonstrable interest/skill in complex mental health and/or inpatient settings.

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology qualification or equivalent.
• Completion of an appropriate clinical supervision course to enable supervision of Trainees (or completion within 12 months of commencement in post).
• Driving license suitable for use in the United Kingdom

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

Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Farnham Road Hospital

Farnham Road

Guildford

Surrey

GU2 7LX

Employer's website

https://www.sabp.nhs.uk/working-for-us (Opens in a new tab)