Clinical/Counselling Psychologist or Psychological Therapist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical responsibilities:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining evidence-based psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

6. To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

9. To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.

10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

11. To deliver and co-deliver brief interventions, for people with complex mental health presentations.

12. To provide time-limited case management for a caseload of service users.

13. To be involved in co-delivering structured group-based treatments, e.g. MBT or DBT groups, as indicated.

14. To be aware of and to embed principles of the trauma-informed approach within the CMH pathway.

Teaching, training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

2. To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical psychology and/or the service as agreed with the professional psychology manager.

3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work as appropriate.

4. To provide professional and clinical supervision of trainee and assistant clinical psychologists.

5. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate.

6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service valuation and audit.

2. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

3. To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.

4. To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists.

Research and service evaluation

1. To use theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

2. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.

3. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

General

1. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the postholders professional and service manager(s).

2. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist-practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

3. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society, the Health & Care Professions Council, and CNWL Trust policies and procedures.

4. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health.

Please see the job description for further details on the roles and responsibilities.

Person Specification

Training and Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral-level training in clinical psychology (or equivalent qualification) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS.
• Further training relevant to the care of clients with complex mental health difficulties, particularly trauma-focused therapies.
• Professional registration with HCPC.

Desirable

• pecialist training in a traumafocused therapy such as TF-CBT, EMDR, or Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET). Post-qualification specialist training in evidence-based psychological therapies for people with complex emotional needs/personality disorder such as DBT or MBT.
• Accreditation through BABCP as a CBT Practitioner.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working in secondary care mental health services with clients presenting with comorbidity, including chronic mood disorders, personality difficulties and trauma.
• Experience of carrying out psychological assessment, developing theory-driven psychological formulation and delivering evidence-based psychological interventions to clients presenting with complex mental health difficulties.
• Experience of working with clients from socially- and culturally-diverse backgrounds.
• Active participation in service planning and delivery.
• Experience of working as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or providing clinical supervision to other mental health staff or psychological therapists.
• Experience of the application of psychology and psychological therapy in different social and cultural contexts.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Ability to establish and maintain a psychotherapeutic relationship with clients presenting with complex needs, particularly those with chronic emotional difficulties, complex trauma and comorbid personality difficulties.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. psychosis, personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).

Desirable

• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists/psychological therapists.

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

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Fairfields House

Fairfields Crescent, Kingsbury

London

NW9 0PS

Employer's website

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