Specialist Music Therapist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical Responsibility

As a clinician, the post holder provides and evaluates assessment and treatment services with adults referred for acute and severe mental health problems including personality disorder and psychoses. They ascertain risk, needs and suitability for individual, group, other psychological therapies as a whole and specialist music therapy, communicating with the whole range of other professionals involved.

As a senior specialist clinician the post holder works jointly with professionals to deliver assessment and care consultation for the range of psychological therapies, provides individual and group arts therapy assessments and treatment; and care consultancy in complex cases.

Analyses and clarifies factors or risk e.g. self-harm, level of functioning, capacity to engage in therapeutic work, unmet needs and support systems to determine the patients complex need and capacities to undertake the treatment mode.

To provide specialised assessment of service users referred for the range of therapies jointly with Psychology and Occupational Therapy to determine which service will meet their therapeutic needs.

To make decisions and recommendations regarding the treatment of service user with complex mental illnesses through investigative assessment processes and to use interpretive skills to understand complex behaviours and psychological function.

To plan, monitor and deliver specialised programmes of care for the treatment of service users experiencing acute and severe mental illness.

To provide Music Therapy interventions, group or individual as appropriate, through sensitive and expert application of Music Therapy techniques to service users assessed as able to engage in therapeutic work. Standardised outcome measures and evidence-based practice interpretation is part of this.

To use skills to continually tailor and adapt interventions to the needs of the service users at any one time with the safety and wellbeing of the service users in mind.

To work to agreed activity standards including duration of intervention

To contain at time highly emotive and distressing clinical material (i.e. sexual abuse and other trauma). To enable the service user to disclose painful material to progress the course of treatment where appropriate and to help them manage the material at times when it may not be helpful to explore it at that time. To use specialist skills and experience to judge this.

To risk assess and manage challenging behaviour and distress and call on available support.

To use highly specialised skills and understanding to help service user in group and individual treatment, either brief or longer term, to disclose, process and resolve conflicts within themselves and with others.

To make referrals to/recommendations for arts or psychological therapy in the community or rehabilitation services where the service user would find this helpful, and support a smooth transition.

To protect and respect the confidentiality of all service users at all times in-line with information governance.

To attend and engage in clinical supervision on a regular basis for reflection of clinical practice and professional development.

To attend and engage in managerial and professional supervision.

Leadership and Staff Management Responsibility

Provide a high level of clinical leadership; specialist clinical skills for assessment for arts therapy and in liaison with other psychological therapies; and for treatment programmes.

Provide a high level of expertise, clinical knowledge and skills for supervision, training, consultation, advice and teaching.

Oversee the local coordination and allocation of formal clinical placements for trainee arts therapists, MA level, and for the provision of training to other health professionals [including medics].

Leads on delegated development of standards of service delivery in accordance with national, professional and Trust sector and directorate policies. Responsible for the interpretation and implementation of these policies in the service.

To provide expert and specialist clinical supervision to arts therapists within the trust, and to specialists in other directorates and localities, by arrangement, including those from other professions.

Service Development and Improvement

To lead delegated tasks concerned with the development and implementation of local protocols and procedures to support delivery of arts therapies including operational issues.

To carry out an annual audit of referrals to Music Therapy and other audit and evaluation as required.

To use recognised outcome measures appropriate to the setting and feedback forms to evaluate/audit the effectiveness of therapy for service users.

To be responsible for the development and implementation of local Music Therapy policies and procedures within the unit, in liaison with the lead.

Contribute to the development of trust wide policies and procedures, e.g. trust induction, supervision.

Interpret policies in areas of specialism for the staff team and facilitate their implementation.

To be responsible for the organisation of student placements and induction in acute services.

To attend meetings as delegated by the lead arts therapist to represent arts therapies e.g. practice governance meetings.

To undertake delegated professional lead responsibilities as agreed with the professional lead.

To undertake pilot projects and research in new areas of clinical work.

To actively engage in individual performance reviews and undertake training as identified.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• M.A. (or equivalent) in music therapy
• Registered with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Music Therapist
• Good Honours degree in relevant subject

Desirable

• Training in clinical supervision

Experience

Essential

• Relevant post qualifying professional experience
• Experience of working in an inpatient setting
• Experience of working with people with a range of mental health problems including personality disorder, psychosis
• Experience of working as an autonomous professional and developing a service
• Experience of providing a range of therapeutic interventions including: assessment, inpatient and outpatient work, individual and group work, exploratory and supportive

Desirable

• Experience of working with mother and babies

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

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Thumbswood Mother and Baby Unit

Kingsley Green, Harper Lane

Radlett

WD7 9HQ

Employer's website

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