Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Job summary

There is an exciting opportunity for a full time, permanent highly specialist clinical or counselling psychologist in the Newham Perinatal Mental Health Team.

The Perinatal Mental Health Team is a multidisciplinary team consisting of nursing, psychology, psychiatry, midwifery, occupational therapy, nursery nurses and admin staff. The team uses an MDT approach to provide holistic, psychologically informed care to women and birthing people in the community who are experiencing moderate to severe mental health difficulties in the perinatal period.

The post holder will lead on developing the psychology provision in the team, which includes offering specialist assessments and time limited one to one and group interventions appropriate for complex presentations. The post holder will support the team to continue to integrate psychological thinking into their practice, provide consultation to interfacing services and supervise psychology colleagues in the team, including trainees.

You will have access to CPD opportunities and will also be allocated half a day a week to pursue your own area of specialist interest.

The successful post holder will be passionate about addressing health inequalities and there will be opportunities to collaborate with the borough's community inclusion lead.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will lead on developing the psychology provision in the team, which includes offering specialist assessments and time limited one to one and group interventions appropriate for complex presentations.

The post holder will support the team to continue to integrate psychological thinking into their practice, provide consultation to interfacing services and supervise psychology colleagues in the team, including trainees.

There are exciting opportunities for CPD including the opportunity to gain experience in other areas of interest to support your development. The post holder will receive clinical supervision from the borough lead for perinatal and be linked in with the trust wide perinatal psychological network. This is an exciting post for qualified, HCPC registered psychologists looking to develop their leadership skills in the NHS.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Lead the psychology service within the perinatal mental health team and support the development of psychological practice throughout the service

2. Direct clinical work with clients (assessments and interventions)

3. Supervise and line manage psychology colleagues in the PMHT including trainees

About us

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Employ a broad theoretical knowledge base to analyse, interpret and compare complex information in order to develop a highly specialist understanding and to design specialised intervention programmes tailored to individual need.

Be responsible for direct delivery of a broad range of specialist psychological interventions and programmes which require the modification of plans and strategies as practice and experience demands.

Offer adaptive and flexible approaches to service users who may have poor communication skills and self care and special physical and/or mental health needs.

Communicate across language and cultural barriers, including use of interpreters for clinical work.

Be responsible for recording, monitoring and reporting on clinical work and communicating complex clinical information to a variety of recipients, service users, families and carers, other professionals, MAPPA and other formal panels and statutory and voluntary organisations, orally, in writing and/or electronically, and as specified by the service.

Provide appropriate specialist psychological assessments.

Contribute to the provision of highly specialist psychological interventions to Service Users in the PMHT, offering time limited interventions including direct individual, family and group work, appropriate for service users experience complex difficulties in the perinatal period.

Working jointly with the multidisciplinary team where appropriate.

Engage in interface/liaison work to ensure joined up care pathways across settings and improve referral processes.

Take the lead for a specified area for interface/liaison work as required.

Contribute to the development of services that seek to acknowledge and address as appropriate existing health inequalities, collaborating with other leads including the borough lead for community inclusion.

Take into account the particular needs of people from minority ethnic groups, and adapt assessment, formulation and intervention as appropriate.

Use a broad theoretical knowledge base and highly specialist clinical skills to develop and support the psychological skills of others (assistant, trainee and other psychologists and members of other staff groups) via the development and delivery of teaching, training, supervision, support and consultation.

Be responsible for providing a psychological perspective/psychological expertise for service or team activities, including clinical care, team or service dynamics, systems, health promotion, team or service organisation, in a range of settings, , case discussions, team meetings.

Provide consultation and support to staff in interfacing services and to families and carers.

Be responsible for developing and maintaining knowledge of local resources and developing working relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups and organisations.

Participate in the organisation and delivery of training events and consultancy covering this highly specialist area, and including work with local voluntary organisations.

Participate in the evaluation of services, including collection of monitoring information as required.

Formulate and undertake service related research and audit and support other staff in research activities as necessary.

Receive regular clinical and management supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines to ensure high quality work, to engage in the Individual Performance Review process and continuing professional development, and generally work within a clinical governance framework.

Use computer data entry systems, record clinical input and outcome data. Collate this information and communicate it as appropriate to the responsible clinician or service lead.

Contribute to the motoring and audit of work in the service.

Offer line management and supervision as appropriate to psychology colleagues, including qualified psychologists and trainees.

Co-ordinate the workloads of psychologists within the framework of the teams policies and procedures.

Participate in the appraisal and job planning of psychologists and other team members as appropriate.

Participate, as appropriate, in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process, and as a member of selection panels for assistant, trainee and qualified psychologist posts.

To make an active contribution to pursue the aims, objectives and overall strategy of the service thereby contributing to the development of clinical services provided within psychological therapies service

Observe personal duty of care in relationship to equipment and resources used in the course of clinical work.

Frequent exposure to distressing or emotional circumstances arising from therapeutic contact with services users (including relatives and carers) requiring emotional engagement with material discussed, emotional self-regulation by the therapist and the delivery of a therapeutic response within professional boundaries.

To provide emotional support as appropriate to professional colleagues.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS HCPC registration as a practitioner psychologist

Desirable

Additional relevant clinical and/or managerial knowledge and skills acquired through formal training, long or short courses, formal supervision (individual and/or group), structured self-study or experience (or a combination of these) to an appropriate level approved by the Head of Psychology and demonstrated by certification, documented supervision logs, management appraisal documentation and/or assessment at interview., including: Supervision skills Leadership training Perinatal mental health Brief Interventions Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) Eye movement desensitsation and reprocessing (EMDR) Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Behavioural couples therapy (BCT) Complicated Grief Therapy (CGT) Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) Video feedback for positive parenting (VIPP) Circle of Security Essential Essential Desirable S&I Experience Experience of work

Experience

Essential

Experience of working as a qualified clinical/counselling psychologist for at least two years Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team, with adult service users who have experienced moderate-severe mental health difficulties such as psychosis, personality disorder, PTSD, OCD, severe depression and anxiety. Experience of providing a clinical service to a multicultural population. Experiencing of conducting psychological assessments. Experience of working with risk issues and safeguarding, making referrals to statuary organisations where appropriate.

Desirable

Experience of offering time limited one to one psychological interventions and group work. Experience of working with service users in the perinatal period. Experience of supervising psychology colleagues. Experience of line management. Experience of working within the principles of trauma informed care.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential

Able to provide & receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere, in a range of relationships and settings. Able to use highly specialist skills of empathy to overcome barriers to understanding and acceptance. Sensitive and respectful approach to the needs of people with severe and enduring mental health difficulties, their families and carers. Ability to support and co-ordinate the work of psychology colleagues within the team/service. Cultural awareness and competence: Understanding and awareness of the potential impact of racism, discrimination & disadvantage on the mental health of Black and ethnic minority people. Able to provide a cultural competent service. Ability to reflect critically on one's own identity. Commitment to examining and challenging one's own biases and developing inclusive services and work places. Experience of working with interpreters. Analytical & judgemental skills: Able to draw upon a broad theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of highly complex facts or situations to arrive at appropriate formulations. Able to compare and select from a range of intervention options, (minimum of two therapeutic orientations) based on formulation. Able to provide brief therapeutic interventions. Awareness of government frameworks and guidelines relating to mental health, NHS Long Term Plan. Basic keyboard skills. Information resources: Able to record and report on as required clinical information. Competent in use of basic IT packages - word processing, e-mail and internet.

Desirable

Active research interests. Record of published research.

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