Clinical Psychologist

Job summary

Working 24 hours per week. Are you a 3rd year trainee or newly qualified Clinical/Counselling Psychologist interested in developing your expertise in working in Later Life community mental health services?

We have an exciting opportunity for a Clinical/Counselling psychologist to join our friendly team of dedicated professionals working with older people living with moderate-severe emotional difficulties. You will be supported in providing a community psychological service to people in later life with mental health difficulties; offering guidance to their wider network of family and carers. The successful applicant can look forward to a very rewarding role improving the psychological health and wellbeing of our older people living in Plymouth.

The team values the skills, knowledge and wisdom offered by psychologists and welcome the prospect of working alongside one. You will be joining a network of friendly psychologists working across various specialties in the organisation, many of whom have close links to the University of Plymouth should you be interested in conducting research or would like to teach as a visiting lecturer.

The service covers the whole city of Plymouth, and is based in Mt Gould Hospital where there is ample parking for both staff and patients. Plymouth is a very affordable city surrounded by lovely beaches, moorland and country walks.

Main duties of the job

The main duties of the successful applicant will involve:

Providing a community psychological service to people in later life with mental health difficulties, supporting their families, and carers as a key component of Health and Social Care Partnership Services. Providing highly specialist psychology assessments, formulation, one to one and group intervention to people from highly complex, challenging and emotional backgrounds. Providing consultation, teaching and advice to families, care staff and other professionals working in laterlife services. Providing consultation and guidance to other professionals within the team working psychologically with their clients. Providing clinical leadership, co-ordination and supervision for assistant psychologists, trainees and other professionals employed by or attached to the team. Working autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the team. Working alongside other team members to ensure efficient and effective service delivery daily. The post holder will receive regular managerial, professional and clinical supervision in accordance with Livewell South West policy and the Professional Practice Guidelines set out by the Health and Care Professionals Council.

Please note that this role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route, please refer to the Direct Gov website for more information with regards to eligibility.

About us

Livewell Southwest is an independent, award-winning social enterprise providing integrated health & social care services for people across Plymouth, South Hams & West Devon, as well as some specialist services for people living in parts of Devon & Cornwall. With teams in community hospitals, GP practices, sports centres, health & wellbeing hubs.

As an organisation with a strong social conscience, we always value being kind, respectful, inclusive, ambitious, responsible and collaborative. Transforming services to make them sustainable, ensuring that we value, support & empower each other.

We are committed to involving the people we care for, families & carers in everything that we do, working towards co-production where we can. Helping us to deliver the right care for people, in the right place & at the right time. By putting people at the centre of what we do, we ensure to support people to lead, healthy independent lives & be the very best at helping people to live well.

Valuing our employees making an investment in their development a priority. We offer:

Protected CPD time for registered staff

Various development pathways and ongoing regular training packages for all staff

Leadership & mentoring programmes

Access & funding for training including Care Certificate, Assistant Practitioners Course & Scholarship Into Nurse Training

A Robust Preceptorship

A bespoke induction programme

Existing members of the NHS Pension Scheme can continue their membership when they join the organisation.

Job description

Job responsibilities

To possessand practice a high level of communication and relationship skills insituations where emotional distress and risk of self-harm and of lifethreatening behaviour can be expected.

To dealeffectively with highly distressing service user and family situations (family breakdown, abuse, verbal aggression, challenging behaviour) and tosupport other staff in their responses to such situations ( throughsupervision, consultation, debriefing).

Tocommunicate with staff in health, social care, and the voluntary sector in ahighly skilled and sensitive manner, complex and sensitive informationconcerning the assessment, formulation and intervention plans for people whoare under our care.

To providesupport and guidance in the application of psychological principles andtechniques and to foster reflective practice at an individual and group level.

Responsiblefor providing a specialist psychological service to people in later life presentingwith complex physical health problems, psychological disorders and behaviouraldifficulties.

To use theoreticaland practical knowledge to perform specialist psychological, psychometricassessments which require specialist analytic and interpretive skills.

To draw onmultiple sources and a range of theoretical psychological models and knowledgeto develop formulations that guides the development of clinical interventionsand care plans at an individual and group level. This includes making skilledevaluations and decisions regarding the psychological management of clients,including the management of risk.

To writepsychological reports for service users, referrers and carers detailing theoutcome of assessments and interventions and to communicate such complexinformation in a sensitive manner.

To provideadvice and guidance through the process of consultation on psychologicalaspects of a persons care to the person, colleagues, service providers, paidcarers and families.

To managethe referrals to the psychology service from both the memory and mental healthcommunity teams.

Tocontribute to service innovation for older people with mental health problems tobest meet the organisations strategy and priorities.

To be responsible for planning and prioritising ownworkload and for balancing individual responsibilities for service user workwith other roles within and outside the teams clinicalaudit,service development, consultancy and training.

Responsiblefor formulating and implementing plans for a range of evidence-basedpsychological interventions for individuals, carers, families, groups andservice delivery systems.

Beingresponsible for the adjustment and refining of psychological formulations,drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number ofprovisional hypotheses based upon the analysis of each individual case. In addition, to demonstrate awareness of race,culture and diversity issues.

Responsiblefor providing specialist advice and consultation to other service members onpsychological aspects of mental health; including appropriate treatmentapproaches, complex issues of engaging people with memory difficulties andmaintaining change, and working with the wider systems which affect a personswellbeing ( family, paid carers).

Tointerpret and contribute to the development of policies and procedures for theprovision of psychology and psychological therapy services in later life services.

Tocontribute to the multi-professional planning, development and marketing ofmental health wellbeing services.

Tomaintain and apply psychometric tests and equipment, and evaluate progress.

To superviseassistant psychologists.

To providetherapy supervision to non-psychology staff providing psychological therapieswithin the service.

The post holder will be required to compileclinical reports, maintain accurate records using the appropriate IT system andbe responsible for any other administrative tasks relating to theirclinicalwork clinical audit and reports.

The post holder is responsible for liaising withother team members and health and social care employees, both in verbal andwritten form in order to co-ordinate effective and appropriate care for later life service users. .

To carryout research activities as and when required, applying knowledge of researchmethodology and to contribute research knowledge and expertise to the researchactivities of other disciplines as required by the service.

To takeresponsibility and develop effective means of auditing and evaluating theoutcomes of individual work, team activity and clinics within the service.

The postholder will be involved in identifying and implementing service developmentswhich will enhance the treatment opportunities provided to service users andcarers, through consultation and collaboration with managers, team members andlocality wide facilities.

The postholder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Livewell South West policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines (HCPC).

To work autonomously withinclinical professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the governanceof psychological practice with the Health and Social Care partnership for later life services.

To provide expert and specialistclinical psychologist expertise and advice guidance and consultation onpsychological aspects of client care to colleagues, and, other service providers,and families.

To ensureall clinical care and treatment provided by psychology is carried out underappropriate supervision and leadership.

The postholder will ensure that they maintain their awareness of research findingsconcerning psychology, later life mental health assessment and therapeutic interventions.

To contributeto the supervision of Trainee Clinical Psychologists on Psych Course(Plymouth University).

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Qualified Clinical Psychologist ( Psych or equivalent) and registered with the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC)

Desirable

Certification and experience of either: CBT, BAT, ACT, Systemic therapy or Mindfulness based therapies.

Experience

Essential

Experience of conducting psychological assessments, interventions and evaluations Experience of working in a multidisciplinary team Experience of team consultation and supervision

Desirable

Experience of teaching and training others Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts Experience of performing and interpreting neuropsychological assessments

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

Knowledge of Later Life Mental Health services in the NHS, skills and practice of clinical psychology.

Skills Abilities

Essential

Excellent verbal, non-verbal and written communication skills Ability to integrate complex data, make highly skilled evaluations and decisions, and take a long-term perspective Organisation and time management skills

Desirable

Experience of developing effective relationships with other agencies and organisations and working across organisational boundaries within health or social care To have well developed reflective practice skills Extensive experience of working effectively as part of a team and aiding the development of a team Consultation skills

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