Psychological Therapist

Job summary

We are looking for a psychological therapist to work with an innovative new team that supports people with Complex Emotional Needs ( EUPD) as they transition from inpatient to community.

You should be a clinical/counselling psychologist, or someone with a qualification in psychological therapy and experience of working within the NHS with people with high acuity and complexity. This might include an art psychotherapist or a nurse, social worker or OT with further therapy training.

You will be part of Adaptive Support for Complex Emotional Needs Team (ASCENT). This is a pilot project set up to support people who struggle to maintain their safety and can become stuck in inpatient settings or experience frequent crises.

The team will provide a range of input to help service users manage their crisis, as well as working closely with other teams to ensure that personalised safety plans are understood and achievable.

The team will be able to work in an innovative way so that service users can work with the same clinicians throughout their journey between services, in contrast to traditional models where service users may see different professionals each time their care moves to a different team, with the aim of having direct contact with people within one working day of them presenting in crisis. Initially, team members with provide in-reach to wards, to establish a trusted therapeutic relationship before discharge.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will work with service users to provide them with appropriate support until they achieve stability in the community. This will include direct clinical work to formulate their difficulties as well as formulating the patterns of interactions with the various different services. The post holder will also be involved in developing collaborative crisis plans and working directly with other key stakeholders such as other NHS teams, families and support networks and non statutory services to ensure that these plans are understood and implemented.

The role will include providing individual formulation driven psychological therapy as well as group and family work. The team will follow a Structured Clinical Management (SCM) approach, so prior knowledge and experience of SCM would be desirable, as would experience of working in an MBT or DBT framework.

You will be flexible and responsive, if someone is admitted to hospital you can quickly attend to support the individual as well as sharing knowledge and treatment advice with the team.

As this is a new service, you will play a key role in developing the team, as well as contributing to the evaluation to demonstrate the benefit .

Flexible working: The post is full-time, Monday to Friday, 9am-5pm, however we will consider requests for flexible working. This would require a minimum of days working with the team, with the majority of working hours within the core hours (above).

About us

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good' - we aspire to be 'outstanding'.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

About our locations:

Springfield University Hospital, Tooting

Our largest, 19-ward site is in Springfield Village, created following our £150m investment into two new world class mental health facilities. A 32-acre public park, shops and cafes are coming soon. Close to shops, cafes and Tooting Bec on the Northern Line plus Earlsfield and Tooting rail stations and bus routes.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complexdata 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 clients care. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings. 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. 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. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans. To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management. To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Teaching, Training, and Supervision

To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues. To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to clinical psychology and/or the service, within the principal service area (as agreed with the professional psychology manager) up to two sessions per week [pro rata]. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staffs psychological work as appropriate. To provide professional and clinical supervision of trainee and assistant clinical psychologists or other trainee psychotherapists. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology, as appropriate. 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

To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing. To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures. To be involved, as appropriate, in the short-listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists.

Research and Service Evaluation

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

Other

To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holders professional and service manager(s). To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific client group and mental health. Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

Doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS including models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and (for Clinical Psychologists) neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology ; OR alternative training outside of the UK that is recognised by the Health & Care Professions Council leading to registration in the UK as a Clinical or Counselling psychologist OR Core Mental Health Profession (registered with an appropriate professional body , NMC, UKCP, HCPC) PLUS Formal accredited training psychotherapy such as: - DBT (to intensive/upgrade level) - MBT (basic and practitioner certificate training) - other formal other formal accredited psychotherapy training ( Systemic Family psychotherapy) with 2 years of supervised qualified experience Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS Formal training in supervision of other psychological therapists

Desirable

Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology Post qualification training in DBT or other evidenced based treatments for personality disorder

Experience

Essential

Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse Experience of working with people with Complex Emotional Needs Demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision of working as a specialist clinical psychologist over a minimum of 18 months, or an alternative agreed by the Director of Psychology

Desirable

Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts Experience of working within a multicultural framework Experience working in acute settings such as acute inpatient wards

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