Apprentice Clinical Associate Psychologist

We have a post available for an apprentice Clinical Associate in Psychology (CAP) to join the Older People's Community Service in the South of Norfolk. CAPs are a new addition to the psychological workforce, supporting the wider NHS agenda to develop and expand psychological provision. The service provision covers functional and organic presentations seen in older adults across South Norfolk and is located in Wymondham.

The successful applicant will be trained to utilise psychological knowledge, research and theory to reduce service users' psychological distress and enhance wellbeing by providing and evaluating effective evidence-based care. CAPs are semi-autonomous psychological practitioners trained to manage a caseload within their scope of practice and under the supervision of a Clinical Psychologist.

As a Clinical Associate in Psychology (Apprentice), you will work closely with the existing Clinical Psychologist and wider multidisciplinary team to deliver a psychologically-minded secondary mental health service to older adults and those with a diagnosis of Dementia.

In addition to the academic component of this apprenticeship, your duties within the workplace would include:
Providing psychological assessments and formulation of individuals' mental health difficulties, strengths, and any risk/safety concerns.

Delivering personalised, evidence-based individual and group interventions.

Thinking and working creatively to provide effective interventions where there may not be an existing evidence base, such as in complex or chronic clinical presentations.

Active participation in multidisciplinary case discussion, team formulation, and reflective practice meetings.

Gathering, analysing and disseminating data for audit, service development and research purposes.

Involvement in research and service development activities.

Providing support, guidance, training and consultation to multidisciplinary colleagues to enhance the range of psychological intervention that other professionals may utilise.

The post holder will be expected to maintain a high standard of professionalism and accountability within the CAP scope of practice.

Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.

Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established professional networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.

Why Norfolk and Suffolk? The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.

**Some of the benefits you can expect**:
NHS pension

a comprehensive in house & external training programmes

career progression

starting annual leave of 27 days per annum increasing to 33 days pa based on length of service (plus paid bank holidays)

staff physio service

NHS discounts and many more

The successful applicant will join our professional and friendly multidisciplinary team. We are proud to say that our team’s high standards of care attract positive feedback from our service users and carers on a weekly basis and Community Older People Teams in our Trust are consistently rated as ‘Good’ by CQC. Would you like to do a job that makes a difference every day, using your skills, experience, and compassion with older people and people of all ages with dementia? Then join us.

The team consists of qualified and trainee Nurses, Clinical Psychologist, Consultant Psychiatrists, Occupational Therapists, Assistant Practitioners, Community Support Workers, and Administration staff. The team work collaboratively to support service users' recovery, including living well with dementia.

The post holder will need to be able to undertake the duties of this post in person - this may entail seeing service users in their own homes, residential settings, acute wards, or in the community. Therefore the ability to travel independently is required.

They will also be required to support and work collaboratively with our colleagues within the CMHT service along with and the other organisations and allied teams in our care group.

Upon successful completion of the CAP apprenticeship end point assessment, it is envisaged that the applicant would progress to a qualified CAP post with the South Older People's Community Ser