Principal Applied Psychologist and Clinical Lead

Job responsibilities

Take clinical leadership responsibility for the implementation and coordination of psychological care for the home/unit they are responsible for.

Ensure the systematic provision of high-quality specialist psychological services for young people and their families/ carers, with an emphasis on co-production, dealing primarily with complex psychological problems on the home/unit they are responsible for. To develop a service that meets the agreed service priorities set out in the SECURE STAIRS framework.

The post-holder will undertake complex assessments and intervention strategies, including specialist neuropsychological assessment; offer consultancy and provide expert advice to multidisciplinary colleagues, and the wider clinical multi-professional team, other agencies and non-professional carers.

Provide leadership, consultation, supervision and support to psychologists and other members of the clinical team who provide psychologically based care and treatment within this setting.

The post-holder will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development, research and teaching and act as a highly specialist resource to the wider professional community. The post-holder will propose and implement policy changes within Swanwick Lodge working closely with other Lead Psychology colleagues across the Children and Families and CAMHS inpatient and community services and the Divisional Lead for Psychological Therapies. This will include a role in effective recruitment, professional appraisal, and the identification of CPD needs.

To provide specialist psychological assessments of young people 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 young people, family members and others involved in the person's care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a person's mental health problems and risky behaviour, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the young person's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.

When appropriate identify repeating patterns of crisis and advise ways of breaking the cycle, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the young person's presenting and underlying problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings

To provide a psychological opinion about formulation, diagnoses, treatment needs and risk and to represent these as appropriate, to multiagency meetings both internal and external to Swanwick Lodge.

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

To be responsible for supplying a systematic understanding of severe and complex psychological concerns, particularly where certain events, relationships or psychological factors provoke repeated crisis.

Commencing with assessment, clinical work will require the analysis, interpretation and comparison of a range of options and theoretical perspectives, which will in turn facilitate the development of complex formulations in collaboration with the individual and care team. The formulation will inform the most effective evidence-based highly specialised programme of care/ interventions.

To work with the multidisciplinary team in developing and implementing psychological interventions for the management of specific difficulties. To identify and address factors which may contribute to the team's difficulty in maintaining a consistent approach with young people. To identify and ameliorate situations in which a care team is split by its members' attitudes and behaviours towards a particular individual.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the specialist assessment and treatment of individuals whose problems are managed by psychological, trauma informed based care plans.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all young people and staff throughout the home and across all settings and agencies serving the young people placed with us.

To undertake and develop a core competency in risk assessment and risk management for individuals and to provide advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

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

To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of young people of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

To act where appropriate as lead clinician, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the individual's needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, tasking responsibility for arranging multidisciplinary and multiagency reviews as required and communicating effectively with the young person and family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-professional interventions.

To facilitate reflective practice, case reviews, consultation and skills development in working with complex young people.

To deal appropriately with the intense emotional atmosphere surrounding therapy contacts on a daily basis and to work with frequent intense concentration for the clinical sessions of assessment and therapy.

To work as an autonomous, independent practitioner responsible for own work and interventions, their prioritising and planning and for the interpretation of agreed guidelines and policies

To tolerate and manage verbal abuse and occasional physical aggression. Training and critical awareness of physical intervention procedures (Team Teach) is required.

To develop standards and set clear limits for the service, in consultation with the Divisional Lead Psychologist in line with the Divisional and Trust Psychological therapies strategy.

To participate in, and to represent the Health and Wellbeing Team in agreed management groups.

To provide clinical placements for trainee applied psychologists, Clinical Associate Psychologists, and Youth Intensive Psychological Practitioners, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

To provide advice, consultation, training and clinical supervision to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve young people's functioning.

To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychological therapy as appropriate to other health professionals, including doctors in psychiatric and general practice training, and to contribute to the development of teaching programmes.

To contribute towards the planning, organising, delivery and evaluation of teaching modules on topics relevant to psychological approaches to care for health professionals e.g. CBT, CBT, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, CAT, neuropsychology.

To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychologists.

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

Receive regular supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines.

To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to a team, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychological therapists, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of young people.

To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service.

To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees, qualified clinical psychologists, Systemic Family Therapists, Creative Arts Therapists and other clinicians in the Health and Wellbeing Team.

To provide line management for other staff providing psychological therapies within the service.

To provide leadership for the development of the SECURE STAIRS framework. Ensuring that formulations, training and skills groups are organised as efficiently as possible.

To manage the workloads of assistant, qualified and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the service's policies and procedures.

To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists and other clinicians within the Health and Wellbeing team.

To lead in the planning and development of the services for individuals and their families at Swanwick Lodge as appropriate.

To represent the psychological perspective on relevant working groups within the service and more widely.

To take the psychology lead, as a senior clinician using doctoral level research skills, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the team's operational policies, 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.

Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies. and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience.
• Registered with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist
• Non Clinical Psychologists will need to be able to demonstrate the above competencies

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Management/leadership training

Experience

Essential

• In depth experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist at a highly specialist level.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of patient groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of providing Neuropsychological Assessment
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for client's psychological care and treatment, within the context of a multi-professional care plan.
• Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
• Experience of providing neuropsychological supervision to other staff.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of patients in clinical mental health settings, e.g., hospital or community mental health teams.
• Experience of working with service users with complex psychological needs.
• Experience of engaging and sustaining work with ambivalent clients.
• Experience of liaison with other health professionals.

Desirable

• Post-qualification experience in secure/ inpatient/forensic or other relevant clinical settings
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of delivering group programmes
• Experience of working with young people presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
• Experience of managing staff

Additional Criteria

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to patients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• 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 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.
• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of working with young people with complex health problems and within the care setting.
• Skills in the application of interventions for young people with complex attachment and trauma histories and mental health difficulties.
• Ability to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with young people and indirectly via supervision of other staff.
• Ability to constructively manage situations and people at times of conflict.
• Ability to work collaboratively with senior managers and staff in service delivery and developments.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the patient group and mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Ability to identify provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• IT skills including email, word processing and basic databases. Interest in models of service delivery and an ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary mental health services.

Desirable

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. looked after children, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc.).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the setting, mental health and looked after young people.
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• A commitment to the evaluation of services, enthusiasm for both multi-professional and uni-professional audit and a wish to continue to develop expertise in the service area.
• Ability to demonstrate leadership and management skills

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).