Principal Applied Psychologist

Job responsibilities

JOB SUMMARY

The post holder will provide a high quality specialist clinical psychology service to clients as part of the multidisciplinary team within the service.

The post holder will provide psychological assessments and interventions to clients within the service

The post holder will provide psychological assessment and interventions in keeping with evidence based practice working autonomously within the professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the Trusts policies and procedures.

The post holder will be involved with service development, research and audit in line with the service priorities

The post holder will be expected to supervise and support the psychological assessment and therapy provided by other psychologists and other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.

The post holder will work in collaboration with professionals, carers and service users offering advice, consultation and supervision as appropriate.

KEY RESULT AREAS:

Clinical

1 The post holder will develop and maintain therapeutic relationships with clients, including in group settings. This will include joint working with complex cases which require more specialised levels of assessment and therapeutic skills.

2 The post holder is expected to provide autonomous, highly specialist assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of psychological of psychological 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, and, where appropriate, family members and others involved in the clients care.

3 The post holder will be expected to communicate with clients with a wide range of difficulties and other presentations, including clients with complex mental health difficulties and plan and organise broad range of complex activities.

4 The post holder will be expected to formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and /or management of a clients mental health problems including associated challenging behaviours, based on appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problem and employing methods of proven efficiency across the full range of care settings.

5 The post holder will be expected to make decisions and clinical judgements involving a range of highly complex factors in the context of inadequate or unavailable information, equivocal research/ evidence or where expert opinion differs.

6 The post holder will be expected to exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.

7 The post holder is expected to act as care co-ordinator where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package for the clients needs, co coordinating the work of others involved with care, arranging the clients reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, the family and all others involved in the care and to monitor progress during the course of multidisciplinary interventions.

8 The post holder will have skills to communicate sensitive and complex information regarding personal psycho-social problems in an empathic and supportive way using the highest levels of interpersonal skills in situations which can be highly emotional and sometimes antagonistic.

9 The post holder will be expected to have responsibility and autonomy for the treatment and discharge of clients, whose problems are managed as a psychologically based care plan, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and interventions, communicating with the referral agent and others involved with the care on a regular basis.

10 The post holder will undertake risk assessments that will be used to inform/advise other professionals and carers where there are concerns in relation to mental health or risk taking behaviour.

11 The post holder will work with colleagues from other professional backgrounds and agencies to enable them to incorporate specialist psychological knowledge into their work.

12 The post holder will be expected to provide a flexible approach to engaging service users who may have difficulties engaging with the service by offering appointment in other, health centres, and home where appropriate.

Teaching, Training, Consultation and Supervision

13 The post holder will provide timely, appropriate and concise information (written and verbal) including the compilation of assessment and risk reports and summaries of therapeutic interventions including psychological reports in line with the Trusts Information Governance protocols.

14 The post holder will be expected to plan and manage their own time to meet expected workload across a number of complex activities and within specified time limits.

15 The post holder may be required to engage in physical activity involving role play with clients in a therapeutic setting.

16 The post holder will be exposed to highly emotive information, distressing situations and a possible risk of challenging behaviours.

Research, Audit and Evaluation

17 The post holder will be expected to contribute to the Safeguarding Adults and Childrens Agenda.

18 The post holder will actively promote user/carer involvement in all aspects of care planning and delivery whilst respecting the rights cultural needs, capabilities and wishes of the individual concerned.

19 The post holder will be expected to support the Person Centred Planning Agenda.

20 The post holder will receive regular clinical professional and safeguarding supervision and will be responsible for accessing this on a regular basis.

21 The post holder will be involved in the delivery of teaching, training, consultation and supervision and provide supervision to other colleagues and professionals as appropriate.

22 The post holder will provide training placements and participate in teaching for the relevant regional training programme. The post holder will assess the clinical competence of trainees and provide formal feedback to the relevant training body.

General

23 The post holder will supervise and hold clinical responsibility for the caseload of clinical psychology trainees and psychology assistants.

24 The post holder will contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology as appropriate.

25 The post holder will be required to maintain professional registration with the HCPC.

26 The post holder will consult with managers and colleagues regarding practice development and management issues.

27 The post holder will deliver services within the team based on the best evidence available.

28 The post holder will abide by the operational policy of the service and the Trusts wider policies and procedures.

29 The post holder will use appropriate leadership skills in day to day practice and have knowledge of relevant national and strategic developments.

30 The post holder will develop programmes of care and care packages in a specialist area in line with the best available evidence.

31 The post holder will be responsible for a delegated area of service of service provision and work closely with the Directorate Team to develop this area.

32 The post holder will be involved in service delivery in line with Trust and Directorate priorities.

33 The post holder will represent the service at multi-agency settings and contribute to the development of multi-agency services.

34 The post holder will manage the clinical work of less senior psychology staff and other professional staff where appropriate.

35 The post holder will be involved, as appropriate, in the short-listing and interviewing of staff where appropriate.

36 The post holder will work jointly with other team members in managing cases, and provide specific therapeutic techniques as required.

37 The post holder will be expected to participate in case management

38 The post holder will keep up-to-date with recent developments in clinical practice and provide evidence-based interventions and be able to demonstrate this in every day practice and at their annual appraisal.

39 The post holder will support the evaluation of practice with use of standardised measures and analysis of such.

40 The post holder will undertake R&D activity and lead on audit projects in line with the Clinical Governance Agenda.

41 The post holder will organise R&D activity of trainees/Assistants and supervise their evaluation of practice, service orientated research projects and experimental case reports.

42 The post holder is required to keep comprehensive clinical notes and consultation records as defined in the operational policy, utilising both case files and the services electronic patient record system.

43 The post holder is required to keep an up to date electronic diary.

44 The post holder will be responsible for the prudent use of equipment and resources.

For full job description, please see attached supporting documents.

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Special Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management.
• Skills in change management.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills to work with clients with a range of difficulties and to utilise therapeutic methods of proven efficiency.
• 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.
• Evidence of continuing professional development to meet HCPC requirements.
• Skills in risk assessment and management, needs assessment, care planning and case management.
• Knowledge and ability to apply relevant legislation and government policies in relation to the area of practice.
• Demonstrate leadership skills in relation to an area of practice.

Physical Attributes

Essential

• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Commitment to service evaluation and consultation with service users.
• Willingness to be flexible and adaptable in accordance with changing service priorities.
• Commitment to challenging discrimination and improving accessibility to services.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of people across a range of care settings, which may include outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of carrying out assessment and diagnosis and management within a multidisciplinary team.
• Experience of working as a HCPC clinical psychologist.
• Experience of leading in an area of service development.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of complex mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development in relation to the area of practice for this post.
• Experience of teaching, training and supervision.

Qualifications

Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically mental health, clinical psychometrics and therapeutic interventions.
• Registration with the HCPC as a Clinical psychologist.
• Training in the supervision of doctoral level trainee psychologist.
• Post qualification training in a relevant area of specialised practice relevant to the post.

Desirable

• Training in change management/service development principles.

Personal Attributes

Essential

• Ability to travel around the Trust as appropriate to the role.

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).