Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist
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 overview
There is an opportunity for you to join our team at Evergreen in Luton, Bedfordshire on a 10 Month Fixed Contract (Maternity Cover) for 22.5hours a week.
We currently work with 12–18-year-old young people and their families across Bedfordshire and parts of the East Of England.
Evergreen is an 8 bedded GAU which opened in February 2023. We are tremendously proud of the Unit whose design , ethos, staffing were all co-produced with Children and parents from across BLMK.
Young people present with eating disorders, psychosis, OCD, and emerging and emotional regulation difficulties. The young people are in varying stages of recovery and can be dynamic and resourceful. We actively encourage them to help us enhance their experience of care.We have an eclectic and energetic staff group and are seeking a candidate who has an interest in developing our current service and delivering our clinical care in new ways. We pride ourselves in being a learning centre and believe in the development of our staff team through weekly academic sessions, regular training, reflective practice and complex case discussions.
This supports our strong team ethos on cross-discipline learning, evidence based practice and being reflexive practitioners.
Main duties of the job
The Clinical Psychology Service provides formulation driven, therapeutic assessments in order to facilitate an understanding of the young person’s strengths and needs. From the assessment, time limited interventions are offered both directly and through consultation with members of the wider multi-disciplinary team, i.e. medical, nursing, family therapy, occupational therapy, art therapies, social work and education.A range of therapeutic orientations is represented in the wider team including psycho-dynamic, systemic and cognitive behavioral perspectives.
Psychological input begins at admission and is focused on enabling young people to return to their community as soon as possible.
Working for our organisation
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.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
You will join the psychology team which consists of one Assistant Psychologist and Trainee Psychologist.
There will be considerable opportunities for developing your clinical leadership skills, sharing your clinical expertise and developing your capacity to enjoy multi-disciplinary team working. We would value your input to our quality improvement programme, and the development of psychological skills within the wider team.We are committed to staff development and reflective practice, with considerable resources in the Team and wider trust to support this.
You will have some experience of working with adolescents presenting with complex mental health presentations. We are seeking a candidate who is interested in neuropsychological assessment, multidisciplinary team working and targeted psychological interventions, especially third-wave CBT.We welcome informal inquiries and would enjoy showing you around Evergreen and talking to you about our work.
Person specification
Training Qualification
Essential criteria- Three year Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, covering all care groups. Training in at least two therapeutic approaches and basic neuropsychological training.
- Relevant specialist training or demonstrable experience in CBT, Child Neuropsychology or Systemic Work.
- Clinical supervision training for Doctoral trainees.
Experience
Essential criteria- At least one year post-qualification experience as a Clinical Psychologist which includes relevant experience in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
- Experience of providing a direct clinical service with children, adolescents and their families with severe and complex mental health difficulties including specialist assessment, psychological formulation of problems and intervention.
- Experience of completing neuropsychological assessments with adolescents with severe and complex mental health needs. Able to use a range of assessments such as WISC, Connors, ABAS and ADOS.
- Experience of using a range of outcome measures within a CAMHS context that may aid assessment and formulation information for a young person.
- Experience of developing and delivering specialist training programmes and/or supervision of other staff groups.
- Experience of participating in audit, evaluation and quality improvement.
- Experience of contributing to policy and service development.
- Additional relevant clinical 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 demonstrated by certification, documented supervision logs, management appraisal documentation and/or assessment at interview. This will include supervision training.
- Experience of clinically supervising the work of colleagues (Assistants and/or trainee psychologists, MDT colleagues) and thereby managing a Clinical Caseload of direct and indirect work.
- Experience in applying Leadership skills to drive forward individual clinical care plans and service projects (for example quality initiatives, service development plans)
- Work in a multi-cultural setting, including working with interpreters.
- Some knowledge of and experience in offering DBT with young people and/or their families.
- Experience in clinically supervising junior psychologists.
- Experience of delivering psychological group programs to young people in tier 4 settings.
Knowledge & Skills
Essential criteria- Able to supervise trainee and assistant psychologists and members of other staff groups.
- Communication & Relationship skills: 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.
- 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 treatment options, based on formulation.
- Planning and organisational skills: Able to plan, organise and prioritise own workload.
- Physical skills: Basic keyboard skills.
- Able to record and report on as required clinical information. Competent in use of basic IT packages – word processing, e-mail and internet.
- Research & Guidance: Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis. Up to date knowledge of psychological research and national guidance relevant to the client groups. Knowledge of legislation and its implications for clinical practice with the client groups.
- Cultural awareness: Aware of the potential impact of discrimination & disadvantage on mental health.
- Flexibility: Able to be flexible and adapt approach according to need. Capacity to work effectively as a member of a multi-disciplinary team.
- Information resources: Competent use of other IT packages e.g. PowerPoint, Excel and Access.
- Cultural competence: Able to provide a cultural competent service.
- Flexibility: Able to innovate on the basis of theoretical knowledge.
Making Things Better
Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.
We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.
Our Community
We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London.We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.
Aiming High
We were rated ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated ‘Outstanding’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate 'Outstanding' in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.
Staff and Service Users United
We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services.We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.
We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.
Diversity
ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve.Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.
Other reasons to apply
As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.
As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.
What Next?
If you like the sound of ELFT, don’t waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!
As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS.We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..
If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made.Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.
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