Clinical or Counselling Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical:

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 self-report measures, direct 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.

3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within the existing team as well as across other teams in the adult care pathway.

4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both 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 communicate highly complex and potentially highly distressing information in a skilled and sensitive manner, in situations with clients who maybe highly emotional or distressed requiring the highest level of communication skills. 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 treatment.

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 continue to gain wider post-qualification experience and skills relevant to clinical psychology and/or the service (as agreed with the team manager and supervisor).

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 assistant/graduate psychologists and, as appropriate, to contribute to the supervision of individual cases for trainee 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.

7. To carry out duties in relation to local, regional and national initiatives in developing services in the specialist area as opportunities arise.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the services operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit. This will specifically be in relation to the development of psychological services, in line with the 10yr plan as part of the borough wide transformation programme.

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 graduate 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.

IT responsibilities (other than those used for research)

1. To use computers to write reports and record data, including the use of statistical packages as part of psychological testing, research and assessment when needed. To be able to use research databases and advanced tools for analysis at both quantitative and qualitative levels

Research and service evaluation

1. To utilise 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 post holders 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/counselling 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 HCPC and British Psychological Society and 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.

To be noted:

• This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the postholder may be required to undertake other duties which fall within the grade of the job, in discussion with the manager.

• This job description will be reviewed regularly in the light of changing service requirements and any such changes will be discussed with the post holder.

• The post holder is expected to comply with all relevant Trust policies, procedures and guidelines, including those relating to Equal Opportunities, Health and Safety and Confidentiality of Information.

Person Specification

TRAINING & QUALIFICATIONS

Essential

• Doctoral level training or equivalent in Clinical or Counselling Psychology including two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS
• Registration with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical or Counselling psychologist.

Desirable

• Further training in a different therapeutic model e.g. CBT, EMDR, CAT etc

EXPERIENCE

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a range of care settings and experience of working with complex presentations
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical 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 running groups in mental health settings

Desirable

• Experience providing therapy with the aid of interpreters
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of therapy in different cultural contexts.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management.
• 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 in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Ability to contain, explore and formulate an understanding of high levels of distress both directly with clients and indirectly via supervision of other staff.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, 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 and best practice guidelines in relation to the client group and mental health.

OTHER

Essential

• 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.

Desirable

• Personal experience of mental health problems.

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

North London NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Chase Farm Hospital

127 The Ridgeway

Enfield

EN2 8JL

Employer's website

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