Specialist Clinical/Counselling/Forensic Psychologist/Psych Therapist

Job summary

This post is within a lively and supportive psychology department and includes two service areas where there is an association between service users' mental health difficulties and the criminal justice system. Part of the week will be spent in the inpatient secure services, where you will provide psychological assessments and interventions as well as psychological consultation to an MDT regarding clinical and risk issues. The second service area is a unique psychological therapies service (single profession), providing psychological assessments and interventions to community outpatients.

Forensic experience is not necessary but the post suits candidates who are interested in working with complex presenting situations and are keen to learn and develop a variety of skills to assess, intervene and support other professionals.

For more information please contact Dr Theresa Connolly, , Psychology Lead for the inpatient and community service, for an informal conversation or to know more about the role.

Main duties of the job

As the psychological therapist on a secure ward, you will be part of a wider team of psychological therapists who work across the inpatient service and our community psychology service. You will be responsible for psychological assessments, formulations and psychological interventions for distress and risky behaviours. You will encourage psychologically informed care work as part of the teams, with the aim of promoting an environment in which therapeutic relationships facilitate safety and change.

As well as having autonomy, you will co-work with psychological therapies as part of the group programmes in both service areas and access regular team reflective practice sessions.

Further to the above, you will be supported and trained to supervise and/or manage assistant psychologists, students and trainees.

The Forensic Psychological Therapies department provides a breadth of professional opportunities and opportunities for research and career progression. As part of the preceptorship, you will be offered development sessions to consolidate skills at Band 7, and to support your career planning and professional development into the 8a role without the need to re-interview or move roles.

Benefits of the post include monthly psychology teaching sessions, weekly individual supervision at band 7, access to a network of specialist psychological supervision groups, a range of CPD opportunities and opportunities for future career progression within the department.

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 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 Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical and Client Care

To provide direct psychological care (assessment and intervention) and support the delivery of psychologically informed care by all disciplines within the service.

To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of community clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

To provide culturally appropriate psychological therapy interventions with service suers, carers or families of referred clients when required.

To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of psychological assessment and formulation and treatment outcome in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.

To undertake psychometric and neuropsychological testing as appropriate, including selecting the appropriate tests, administering and scoring the tests in accordance with the manual, and interpreting the findings in the context of all relevant information.

To undertake risk assessment, risk monitoring and risk management for individual clients in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory agencies as appropriate.

KR 2 Responsibilities for team and service clinical functioning

Attend and contribute to directorate level meetings and forums, as directed.

Contribute to the delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse communities.

To be proactive in challenging discrimination.

To advise other colleagues on specialist psychological care of clients.

To liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients in order to develop and review care plans.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

To liaise with the service/s MDT and other professionals.

Implement relevant policies and procedures for the safe running of the service.

KR 3 Service development

To engage in service improvements through audits and quality improvement initiatives.

To ensure the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.

Advise professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To participate in Trust and Directorate strategic development and implementation of new initiatives ( national guidelines), including through membership of committees and/or working parties.

Apply clinical governance standards within the service and ensure that these are maintained and improved.

Provide high quality services that are managed efficiently, according to the overall requirements of the Trust, NHS and government guidance and standards.

Participate in service outcome monitoring.

KR 4 Management and supervision

To provide line management to designated assistant psychologists.

Provide supervision to students and trainees and to multi-disciplinary colleagues delivering psychological interventions.

To support recruitment of assistant psychologists to the service.

For those line managing, to ensure local standards are implemented for the allocation and review of work, job planning, review of performance, sickness management and initial stages of grievance or disciplinary action.

To oversee quality line management and supervision within the team structure, ensuring that staff and trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to health care, and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

To provide highly specialist advice, consultation and training of staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate. This may include work with the Criminal Justice System and Childrens Services.

KR 5 Teaching and Training

To provide and support specialist clinical placements for students and trainees in applied psychological practice.

To contribute to the delivery of teaching and training to junior psychological practitioners and specialist training to other professions.

To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in psychological therapy and risk assessment / management and to implement knowledge gained in practice.

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.

To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of psychological therapies and risk assessment / management, over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post-holder is employed.

KR 6 Record-keeping and Information Governance

To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has management or leadership responsibility.

KR 7 Research and development

To undertake the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits, and quality improvement projects relevant to the service and the directorate research agenda.

To oversee the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits by students and trainees.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

KR 8 Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a senior psychological practitioner according to professional and Trust guidelines and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

To attend Reflective Practice reliably.

To maintain own Continuing Professional Development in line with registered body and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies.

To comply with the registered body Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics/Standards of Proficiency.

To ensure that all psychological practitioners for whom the post-holder has leadership or management responsibility maintain professional standards, adhere to all organisational HR policies and procedures.

To ensure that all psychological practitioners for whom the post-holder has management responsibility continue professional development, assessing and evaluating to ensure they acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to health care.

Maintaining registration and standards of practice according to the employer and any regulating bodies eg the UKCP, BABCP & HCPC etc.

Ensuring all aspects of confidentiality relating to both the service and individuals are maintained at all times.

KR 9 General

To travel to clinical venues, training activities and meetings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow Trust policies relating to its management.

To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations of people in distress or in crisis and who may be abusive and to support others involved in such situations.

To work flexibly which may include offering some regular commitment to late clinics or weekend working, within the overall Job Plan.

To be proficient in the use of IT for purposes such as email, electronic calendar, intranet, video calls and electronic clinical records.

To be familiar with word processing, database and statistical packages, and to use such packages appropriately as necessary.

To maintain high standards of clinical record keeping, including electronic clinical records and report writing, in accordance with professional codes of practice and Trust policies and procedures.

To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues pertaining to the client group.

Person Specification

Training and qualifications

Essential

Professionally accredited psychological qualification in clinical/forensic/counselling psychology or equivalent others

Desirable

Doctorate in Clinical/ Forensic/ Counselling psychology

Professional Registration

Essential

Has or imminently will have HCPC or other relevant. If BACP must be registered status not member

Skills

Essential

Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups

Experience

Essential

Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a range of care settings Experience of two or more distinct treatment modalities Experience of working with complex clinical presentations

Desirable

Forensic experience

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