Assistant Clinical Psychologist

We are pleased to advertise for an assistant psychologist on a fixed post for 9 months. This is an exciting opportunity for you to work in the Bexley Community

Learning Disability Team; a small friendly multi-disciplinary team in South East London.

You would also be part of a thriving learning disability psychology speciality with seventeen clinical staff working in three community learning disability teams across three boroughs. The psychology speciality is a creative and innovative one, encouraging research and service evaluation, with a strong focus on measuring outcomes.

The psychology speciality and Oxleas value highly the involvement and expertise of service users - from their being part of interviews for all posts, through to projects to enable their voices to be heard and to influence services.

You would have a varied workload supporting the work of the clinical psychologists and behaviour specialists within the team. You would have weekly supervision with as Clinical Psychologist as well as formal and informal opportunities to develop your career.

We are looking for someone with a real interest in working with people with learning disabilities. You will be psychology graduate with an upper second-class degree or higher who is eligible for graduate membership for the British Psychological Society (BPS). You should have experience of working with people with either a learning disability or mental health issues.

The role includes engaging with people with learning disabilities who use our services for feedback and service development work through a ResearchNet group as well as supporting audits.

Additionally, you would be adapting your verbal and written communication to be accessible for people with learning disabilities.

The post will be based in Sidcup, but will require work in various locations across Bromley, and some work in all the three boroughs covered by Oxleas. You will ideally have a car available, but it is essential that you can travel throughout the Oxleas area, using public transport where necessary.

Oxleas - About Us

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.

Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:

- We’re Kind
- We’re Fair
- We Listen
- We Care

To support and enhance the professional psychological care of clients within the service, across all sectors of care; providing psychological assessment and psychological interventions under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, working independently on a day-to-day basis according to a plan agreed with a qualified psychologist and within the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures. To assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, and development of audit and/or research projects, teaching and project work.

**Clinical**:

- To develop formulations and deliver therapeutic interventions involving the psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s problems as part of a care plan, under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist.
- To assist in the coordination and running of therapeutic and/or psycho educational groups or clinical projects.
- To work with other staff to assess or support service users in community or inpatient settings and contribute to multi-disciplinary discussions or care guidelines as agreed with the clinical psychologist providing supervision.
- To assist in the development of a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings where care takes place.