Band 5 Assistant Psychologist-Community Enablement Team (Older People)

Job summary

We are seeking an enthusiastic and experienced assistant psychologist to join our large Psychology Service within the Dementia and Frailty Service of BSMHFT, providing mental health services to the culturally and socially diverse population of Birmingham and Solihull. This post is a short term vacancy created to support our Principal Clinical Psychologist in the Community Enablement and Recovery Team (CERT). The CERT team work in an intensive manner with older people with mental health conditions and frailty or dementia to support a mental health escalation of symptoms, avoid a psychiatric admission or support the person's discharge from hospital. The team adopt an enabling and recovery focussed approach to their work and this post holder will support with psychological assessment, contribute to formulation and offer brief interventions.

Main duties of the job

This post will support service users/older people with dementia or mental health problems such as depression, psychosis or anxiety. As such people may be in severe distress and there may be exposure to behaviour that challenges. You will be supported by senior psychology staff and by a large and varied multi-disciplinary team who have good relationships between clinical and operational colleagues. You will assist in the provision of direct clinical services to clients, their families and other carers, and facilitate access to evidence informed psychological practice by supporting the use of psychologically informed assessments, protocols, guidelines and procedures by other members of the MDT. You will need the ability to travel frequently across Birmingham and Solihull between trust sites and service user's homes.

Our services are innovative and focussed on providing the right care to people in the right place. Clinical staff have a high degree of engagement with quality improvement projects which aim at improving recovery and the least restrictive care and discharge options. You will be joining a friendly and supportive Psychology Service which offers excellent opportunities for research, personal and professional development and is committed to providing training and quality supervision. We often host trainee clinical psychology and student psychologist placements on in-patient wards and opportunities exist for informal peer support.

About us

Welcome to Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. Our 4000 clinical and support staff help us to improve mental health wellbeing and meet the needs of the 70,000 people we serve each year. We provide a range of mental healthcare services across Birmingham and Solihull, as well as specialised services nationally. We also offer medical, nursing and psychology training and are proud of our international reputation for both research and innovation.

Our population is culturally diverse, characterised in places by high levels of deprivation which create an increasing demand for our services and a necessity for us to make sure everyone can access the help they need. We are a team of compassionate, inclusive and committed people working together to provide excellent care to support our community. If you are looking for a place to belong, where you can make a real difference to people's lives, join our team where our warm welcome is waiting for you.