Team Administrator: Trust Psychological Professions Workforce Team

Job overview

We have an exciting opportunity to join our Brent Integrated Psychology and Psychotherapy Service as one of our pathways leads.

Our service is organised to provide evidence-based psychological and psycho-social interventions in 3 pathways – psychosis, personality disorder and complex mental health problems. Each pathway seeks to deliver .

We currently have 1.0WTE post available to oversee our psychosis and complex mental health problems pathways.

This post would suit someone with an interest and experience in working with adults with a history of complex difficulties, as well as an interest in collaborating across disciplines. 

The post-holder will be responsible for overseeing the pathways in terms of clinical oversight and decision making. and where appropriate, for managing staff within the pathway. The successful applicant will be required to contribute clinically within the stream in which they are located by providing assessment and treatment to a small caseload of complex patients. 

The post holder will work closely with the clinical leads in developing the pathways and specifically the psychological provision, taking delegated responsibility and leadership from the clinical leads for the supervision and appraisal structure where appropriate. They will also be expected to work alongside the operational management structure in the team and wider service to design clinically effective care pathways compliant with Trust policy.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will co-ordinate and manage the pathways within the Adult psychological therapies service in Brent. The service aims to deliver high quality integrated, recovery-focused and evidence based health and social care interventions to individuals who experience mental health problems.

 The postholder will be responsible for the oversight of psychological therapies provision within the pathway. The postholder will also work closely with the departmental administrator to ensure there are efficient administrative systems in place to effectively manage referrals, waiting lists, recording of clinical activity, performance reporting including Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) and other activity data as required.

 The postholder will train, supervise, work jointly with and consult to multi-disciplinary colleagues, teams, service users, and providers across Primary Care Networks, Secondary Mental Health Services and other elements of the Pathway. 

 The postholder will work as required to support the embedding, development, delivery and governance of the systematic and coherent provision of a high quality, psychologically informed and evidence-based care to people with a mental health problem across all sectors of care.

Working for our organisation

The population served by Brent Mental Health Services is ethnically diverse with significant ethnic minority, immigrant and refuges communities. Parts of the catchment area are characterised by extensive socio-economic deprivation and high rates of psychiatric morbidity. There is a disproportionate provision of supported accommodation for people with mental health problems with associated demands for psychiatric and psychological support and treatment. There are also significant levels of psychiatric co-morbidity in the area, with in particular high levels of substance misuse with associated difficult treatment and management issues.

The post holder will be expected to travel across the Borough, liaising closely with other operational managers and psychological services. 

 Clinical assessments and intervention may be carried out in a number of physical settings including outpatient clinics, inpatient wards, general practice, other community bases and patients’ homes. Work includes liaison and working with both client systems and professional networks involved with a range of complex issues such as those involving clients with significant severe and enduring organic and/or functional mental health difficulties which may involve emotional and behavioural disturbance, acute and chronic physical and mental illness, some progressive (e.g. dementia) where the resolution of the problem is not possible.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred into the CMH pathway based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 and others involved in the client’s care.

 2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

 3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological 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 hypotheses. The Trust has opted for models of CBT, EMDR, DIT, psychoanalytic psychotherapy and family therapy as the evidence-based treatments available and all advice, consultation and training would need to adhere to the principles of these modalities.

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

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

 6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

 7. To ensure that all members of the treating team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

 8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.

9. To ensure the provision of a care package appropriate for the client’s needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, tasking responsibility for arranging case reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

 10. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

 11. To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the CMH pathway.

Teaching, training and supervision

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision from the relevant Head of profession, or his/her delegate and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

 2. To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical/counselling psychologists, and/or psychotherapists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

 3. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified clinical/counselling psychologists and/or psychotherapists attached to the pathway.

 4. To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the CMH pathway for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients’ functioning.

 5. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical/counselling psychology and/or psychotherapy as appropriate.

 6. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

 7. To provide supervision to other medical staff’s psychological work.

 8. To contribute, as required, to the training and education of staff in the Brent Psychological Therapies Service.

 9. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

 Management, recruitment, policy and service development

 1. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible CMH pathway including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing, including identifying service need.

 2. To exercise delegated responsibility, for managing the psychological resources available to the team, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychological therapies staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients, and to delegate responsibility in the team when appropriate.

 3. To deputise as required in the management, organization and evaluation of the referral pathways and mechanisms for local Adult Psychological Therapies services.

 4, To co-ordinate the screening of referrals to the CMH pathway for eligibility with regard to service specifications and to liaise as appropriate with referrers to discuss referrals and to seek additional information as required by the service.

 5. To maintain oversight of psychological services provision into the CMH pathway and to ensure that psychological services in pathway are co-ordinated and have well-defined eligibility criteria and transfer of care procedures.

 6. To act as a point of liaison between the CMH pathway and key referrals sources including local GP’s and Primary Care staff, Community Recovery Teams and the local Acute Service.

 7. To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team, including its coordination and evaluation.

8. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees and qualified clinical/counselling psychologists and /or psychotherapists.

 9. The post-holder will be required to attend the regular clinical and professional meetings of the Adult Psychological Therapies Service and other departmental meetings.

10. To monitor and maintain levels of service in accordance with service level agreements.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download