Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Job summary

To join the Multi Agency Psychological Support (MAPS) Service - which is located in the local authority (London Borough of Hillingdon) and is part of an existing NHS service. The MAPS service comprises of a team of psychologists, providing a service for children, young people and young adults who are in/leaving care and/or adopted or have special guardianship orders, or who are children in need of protection, children in need, or vulnerable children referred to the stronger families service. We work closely with our Hillingdon CAMHS service.

An additional part of role will be to provide psychological support for the 'Staying Close' project. Staying Close aims to provide stable accommodation and comprehensive support to care-experienced young people, aged 18+, who are leaving residential or supported living placements. This will be delivered in partnership with a range of agencies and organisations, including health, education, and employment providers. The aim is to ensure that young people receive joined-up support that meets their needs and helps them to achieve their full potential as they step out of care and transition into adulthood.

Main duties of the job

To offer advice and consultation on clients' psychological care to colleagues from all disciplines including; social care colleagues; staying close team, and individuals external to CAMHS/ Social care working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team's policies and procedures.

To provide specialist clinical psychology/ systemic input to children and young people and their foster carers, special guardians, adoptive parents and their families, young adults referred to staying close project.

To provide specialist psychological and systemic assessment and therapy including specialist assessments for neurodevelopmental concerns where appropriate ( ASD and ADHD).

To support psychological/ systemic assessment and therapy provided by other professionals and to offer supervision as agreed per job plan.

Liaising with staying close team (education, employment, nursing) and adult mental health services.

To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the areas served by the services.

This post provides the opportunity to work with a broad range of complex mental health presentations that contribute to our care pathways including complex trauma, emotional disorders, neuro developmental and enhanced treatment

About us

The Multi Agency Psychological Support (MAPS) Service - Is a service which is located in the local authority (London Borough of Hillingdon) and is part of an existing NHS service. The MAPS service is a well-established team of psychologists, and provides a service for children, young people and young adults who are in/leaving care and/or adopted or have special guardianship orders, or who are children in need of protection, children in need, or children referred to stronger families service. We work closely with our Hillingdon CAMHS service based at Minet Clinic, Uxbridge. The CAMHS team is well established and is staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians.

Hillingdon CAMHS consists of five main sub-teams: Emotional Disorders Team; Neurodevelopmental Team; Enhanced Treatment Team; Learning Disabilities (LD-CAMHS), and; Multi-Agency Psychology Service (MAPS; for children looked after and children in need). The post holder may be required to travel to other parts of the catchment area including working within the community ( schools) and / or wider network outside trust where necessary, The service operates Monday to Friday to 17:00 with some flexibility to work extended hours to meet service need.

To find out more about working in CAMHS please CLICK HERE for one of our CAMHS video.

Job description

Job responsibilities

The post holder will join an established Looked After Children and Early Intervention Service, and will have the opportunity to be part of the Staying Close project (Leaving care young adults). These services work alongside an MDT CAMHS Team and undertake the following responsibilities:

To provide specialist psychological and/or systemic assessments and interventions whilst interpreting and integrating 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 clients, family members, foster carers and others involved in the clients care, including frontline workers in health, education, social services and the voluntary

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of children and young people with mental health difficulties, including those children who are looked after and adopted, or are children in need, children in need of protection, young adults leaving care, or vulnerable children who are part of the stronger families teams. These plans will be based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care

To work to prevent placement breakdown, and far more effective rehabilitation of children and young people back into their families where appropriate.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological and systemic interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional

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

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

To collaborate with colleagues in devising appropriate psychological and systemic interventions for children, young adults, families and

To provide specialist psychological/ systemic advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals who comprise of the team around the child/young adult contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically and or systemic based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client

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

To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care

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 both uni- and multi-disciplinary

Person Specification

Education and Qualifications

Essential

Postgraduate doctoral training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinctpsychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS or have completed a training on a postgraduate course which must be accredited by the Association for Family Therapy and be registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) as a Systemic and Family Psychotherapist Registration as a Clinical Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council

Desirable

Pre/ Post-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other field of applied psychology or relevant area of practice

Previous Experience

Essential

Experience of specialist psychological/ systemic assessment and treatment of clients across a range of care settings (, primary care, inpatient). Experience of working with a variety of client groups, including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in theface of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuseand the threat of physical abuse Experience of working in a CAMHS setting

Desirable

Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision. Experience of working with Looked After Children Adopted, Children in Need, children in Need of Protection or vulnerable children/ young adults Experience of the application of clinical psychology/ systemic psychotherapy in different cultural contexts. Experience of working with interpreters. Experience of the use of a range of cognitive and neuropsychological tests, and diagnostic tools

Skills and knowledge

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 clinicalpractice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour. In particular: ? Understands and able to implement and promote the Equal Opportunities Policy at a level appropriate to the post. ? Understands and can apply confidentiality and information sharing policy and procedures

Desirable

Knowledge of the theory and practice of evidence based psychological/ systemic therapies in specific difficult to treat groups ( children with challenging behaviours, developmental delays, post traumatic stress disorder, and complex trauma, neuro developmental difficulties, and interpersonal difficulties). Knowledge and skills in specialist psychological/ systemic assessment and treatment with children and young people who are looked after or adopted. Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health. Skills of assessing mental health risk and safeguarding concerns

Attitudes, aptitudes, personal characteristics

Essential

Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings. Enthusiastic, flexible and confident approach to working within a team 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. In particular: oUnderstands and able to implement and promote the Equal Opportunities Policy at a level appropriate to the post. oUnderstands and can apply confidentiality and information sharing policy and procedures

Desirable

Experience of working within a multicultural framework

Other

Essential

Sickness (or attendance) record that is acceptable to the Trust. Declared medically fit by the Occupational

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