Highly Specialist Counselling

Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an innovative and flexible Senior Psychologist to join our Mental Health and Wellness Team psychology provision in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. The post holder will join a group of passionate psychologists who value diversity and inclusion. We are firm believers in the importance of co-designing and co-delivering with experts by experience, peer workers and partnering with third sector organisations. The team has a range of specialist interests, and experience in delivering a range of trauma specific therapies. We believe in the importance of richness in delivering secondary care services to effectively meet the needs of the population we serve, therefore integrated working with care co-ordinators from Barking and Dagenham Mental Health and Wellness Teams based at Barking Community Hospital is essential.

We work in tandem with the Community Psychology provision and view this as crucial in supporting the pathway and the people who need it to thrive. Trauma informed care is imperative not only for supporting people who use the services, but for the staff who work in them. We work closely with the Lead for Trauma informed care, and specialist trauma supervision has been set up for the pathway. The successful candidate will be joining the borough at an exciting time of transformation where they’ll have the opportunity to contribute to shaping meaningful services for those it is set up to serve. 

Main duties of the job

• Conducting high quality psychological assessments, treatments, and systematic outcome measurements for service users under the care of the Mental Health and Wellness Team, with a particular focus on those with complex emotional needs. 

• Providing specialist consultation on complex cases presenting with significant distress associated with anxiety, mood disorders, and enduring difficulties that may have been given the diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’.

• Working in close collaboration with other psychology services to ensure a smooth pathway for service-users and their families, under the direction of the Psychological Professional Leads.

• Ensuring that a high quality, timely, accessible and evidence-based psychological service is available to all service users who need it, under the direction of the Psychological Professional Leads.

Working for our organisation

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focussing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

High Cost Area Supplement - Outer London

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (with a minimum of £4,313 to a maximum of £5,436 pro rata for part time).

High Cost Area Supplement - Fringe

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 5% of the basic salary (with a minimum of £1,192 to a maximum of £2,011 pro rata for part time).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Aim of the role: 
The expectation of this post holder will be to support their team, department and organisation to achieve the Trust’s Values in their day to day work. These are the 5P’s: 
● Putting people first 
● Prioritising quality 
● Being progressive, innovative and continually improve
● Being professional and honest 
● Promoting what is possible – independence, opportunity and choice 
 
The post holder will achieve this by:
▪ Supporting the multidisciplinary Mental Health and Wellness team in their work and in the provision of psychologically informed interventions. 
▪ Exercising clinical responsibility for undertaking psychological assessment, psychological 
treatment and discharge planning of clients in consultation with the multi-disciplinary team. 
▪ Assisting in the management, supervision, teaching and coordinating of qualified psychologists and psychological therapists, clinical associates in psychology (both 
qualified and in training), trainee psychologists, assistant psychologists.
▪ Participating in the development and implementation of high standards of clinical care ensuring the service provided is needs led, compliant with national guidance and is viewed positively by service users.

Key Responsibilities:
• Conducting high quality psychological assessments, treatments, and systematic outcome measurements for service users under the care of the Mental Health and Wellness Team, with a particular focus on those with complex emotional needs. 
• Providing specialist consultation on complex cases presenting with significant distress associated with anxiety, mood disorders, and enduring difficulties that may have been given the 
diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’. 
• Working in close collaboration with other psychology services to ensure a smooth pathway for service-users and their families, under the direction of the Psychological Professional Leads. 
• Ensuring that a high quality, timely, accessible and evidence-based psychological service is available to all service users who need it, under the direction of the Psychological Professional Leads. 

Clinical Skills
• The post holder will have professional HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist. 
• Further professional knowledge will have been gained through accredited courses / workshops, study and continuing professional development. 
• To be responsible, and accountable, for service delivery to clients/patients and their carers. 
• To be able to assess and develop plans of care to meet the needs of patients with complex emotional needs, recognising own limitations and seeking advice when necessary. This will 
include continuously evaluating and acting on outcomes. 
 • To be able to initiate referrals to other health professional specialist services and agencies. 
• To provide patients and relatives with information and education thus ensuring they have meaningful choices that promote dignity, independence and quality of life. 
• To ensure practice is supported by research, evidence based practice, literature and peer review.
• To act as an autonomous, registered practitioner who is legally and professionally accountable for own unsupervised actions guided by the professional code of conduct and Trust guidelines 
and protocols. 

Leadership
• To support the team in understanding and valuing others’ roles and contributions. To enable others to contribute effectively, acknowledging the nature of and context of their work, sharing and taking account own and others’ knowledge and skills, and differences in working and 
professional practice. 
• To provide supervision to more junior psychological therapists and other staff developing their therapeutic skills. To participate in the development of an effective team and the development of productive working relationships throughout the Trust. 
• To actively promote integrated health professional working internally and externally. 
• To facilitate the development of a positive and supportive team culture by taking responsibility for dealing effectively with potential conflict. 
• To take an active interest in working parties and groups within the Trust to develop and 
improve on service delivery, protocols and guidelines. 
• To advise, encourage and share knowledge utilising the latest research and practice development.

Administration
• To be computer literate and encourage implementation of the Trust’s IM&T Strategy. 
• To ensure accurate recording of actions, and updating patient records, maintaining confidentiality at all times. 
• To take part, and assist, in the planning and administration relating to day to day running of the caseload.

Communication
• To have a wide range of knowledge in approaches to communicating and managing patient care. 
• To be able to effectively communicate with colleagues, peers, senior managers and clinical leads within the Trust. 
• To be able to communicate complex patient related information facilitating positive outcomes and ensuring collaborative working. 
• Participate in the review and development of clinical policies and identifies improvements to service provision.

Training
• To act as mentor to junior members of the team and trainees, facilitating their development and promoting high standards of care. 
• Ensure junior colleagues and trainees are actively supported to enable them to achieve their learning needs. 
• To ensure own continued professional development and support a culture of lifelong learning in self and others. 
• To undertake, and assist, in the planning of own mandatory training and workshops. 
• To undertake a regular appraisal, developing a personal development plan that includes clinical competencies reflecting the health needs of the local population and relates to Trust strategy. 
• To support new staff and their integration within the team. 
• To support training as part of the role including changes to professional development and implementation of new policies and guidelines.

Person specification

Shortlisting

Essential criteria

Doctoral level qualification in Clinical or Counselling Psychology Professional registration with the appropriate body (HCPC) Experience of working with high levels of risk and severe mental health difficulties Experience of applying NICE compliant therapies relevant to the target population ( Narrative Exposure Therapy, EMDR, CBT, DBT, MBT, DIT) Experience of providing clinical supervision Experience of working in adult secondary care services or specialist tertiary services relevant to this population Knowledge, understanding and experience of working with service users from diverse ethnic, economic and cultural backgrounds Knowledge and experience with working with safeguarding issues, issues concerning forensic risk and highly complex mental health problems

Desirable criteria

Additional specialist post-graduate training relevant to this population ( EMDR, NET, DIT, MBT, Schema Therapy, CAT, Behavioural Couples Therapy)

Shortlisting

Essential criteria

An awareness of NHS priorities Well-developed knowledge and skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management

Desirable criteria

Knowledge of research methodology, research design and data analysis

Shortlisting

Essential criteria

An ability to work autonomously, setting appropriate goals, in accordance with professional ethics guidelines and Trust policies Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the preparation of highly complex clinical reports and assessments

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff. A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity. Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors. Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

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