Highly Specialist CYP Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Highly Specialist CYP Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Band: 8a The Havens is London's Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC), currently based on three sites at Camberwell, Paddington/St Charles and Whitechapel. The Havens provide comprehensive forensic, medical and aftercare services to clients who have experienced rape and serious sexual assault within the past 12 months. We are a longstanding partnership initiative between the Mayors' Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and NHS England to improve the care offered to clients who have experienced sexual assault and rape. The service is provided by King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

The Children and Young People's Service at the Havens (CYP Havens) represents an exciting expansion of service provision, aimed at providing an enhanced service for children and adolescents presenting acutely after child sexual abuse or assault, and ensuring equity of provision with adult services. The Children and Young People's Therapy Service at the Havens (CYP Therapy Service) provides children and adolescents, and their families, presenting with psychological difficulties post sexual abuse with specialist psychological assessment and brief to medium term intervention (individual and group programmes). Additionally, the service provides forensic interviewing of children and young people, alongside being active in audit, research and training.

Main duties of the job

We are looking for an enthusiastic and committed Clinical Psychologist with experience of working with children and young people. The post holder must have experience of working with trauma and providing psychological assessment and intervention to children and young people in one-to-one therapy as well as groups and workshops. Experience of assessing and managing risk in the context of mental health and safeguarding is vital, as well as experience of providing short to medium-term therapy.

You will be working closely with the Havens therapies service and CYP Havens, providing supervision to more junior psychologists. You will contribute to the development of the Havens Service, particularly the Forensic Interview Psychology project, and participate in audit, research, and training in addition to carrying out liaison work with local agencies. Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the ability to work as part of a team are essential. A willingness to rise to the challenges presented by this area of work and a commitment to providing an excellent service to survivors of sexual assault are also necessary. You are expected to have doctoral level training in clinical psychology and must be HCPC registered. Experience of working with clients who have experienced sexual violence and trauma is essential.

Job responsibilities

• To contribute to the systematic provision of a highly specialist psychology service to children, young people and their families attending the Havens.
• To support intake and referral meetings and safeguarding meetings.
• To provide highly specialist psychological assessments, formulations and interventions for clients in the CYP Psychology Service including:
• Specialist assessment and clinical formulation of children and adolescents who have experienced sexual assault, rape or who have been sexually exploited.
• To include psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured/semi-structured and unstructured observations and interviews with the client, family members and others involved in their care.
• Specialist evidence-based brief interventions for children and adolescents who have experienced sexual abuse/exploitation, monitoring outcomes and modifying/adapting intervention as required and drawing on a range of theoretical options, and supporting their transition to local services after 6-20 sessions, as required.
• Undertake liaison psychology with The Havens and borough services, including: advocates; local borough CAMHS teams; local charity and third sector services; local early support services; and local IAPTS and school counsellors.
• To assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.
• To provide both general and specialist advice on psychological aspects of risk identification and management to the clinical team.
• To formulate plans for psychological treatment and/or management, drawing upon an appropriate conceptual framework and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy including CBT models of PTSD and complex trauma. Adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To provide culturally appropriate psychological interventions with carers or families of referred clients when required.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of patients from the Havens Psychology Service, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and interventions, communicating with the referral agent and others involved with the patient's care including the MPS and CPS on a regular basis.
• To complete training in delivering highly specialist psychology led forensic interviews with children and young people reporting sexual abuse or exploitation, if this has not already been completed.
• To operationally lead on the service development, coordination and delivery of a highly specialist psychology led forensic interview service, in collaboration with the Metropolitan police, for children and young people reporting sexual assault, abuse or exploitation.
• To undertake visually recorded forensic interviews (VRI) in collaboration with the Metropolitan police, following receipt of specialist training by the Metropolitan Police.
• To develop, co-ordinate and ensure an effective care pathway between CYP Therapies Service and London Sector CSA hubs/Child House(s), to promote coordinated, safe and effective client care and client choice.
• To communicate skilfully, complex and sensitive information with clients, parents, carers, and colleagues taking account of sensory, developmental and cultural barriers to communication.
• To prepare written reports, including court reports as a professional witness.
• When necessary, provide crisis intervention for those suffering severe emotional and psychological reactions to sexual assault and those who are expressing suicidal thoughts or harm related to others or themselves.
• To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients and to monitor and evaluate progress.
• To provide an environment that is non-judgemental, sensitive and confidential and to ensure the integrity of the psychologist/patient relationship by being a member of a professional organisation e.g. HCPC abiding by their Code of Ethics.
• To attend regular clinical supervision.

Person Specification

Education and Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical/counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the HCPC/BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Completed training course in clinical supervision and/or experience of providing clinical supervision.
• Additional training in a specialised area of psychological (relevant to working with child sexual abuse/exploitation) practice through formal post-qualification training (PG Diploma or equivalent), OR a combination of specialist short courses, or an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice-based learning in a specialist area of clinical practice, assessed by an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma.
• Training in forensic interviewing in accordance with Achieving Best Evidence Guidelines for children and young people.
• Training in the delivery of pre-trial therapy.

Knowledge and Experience

• Highly developed knowledge of models of therapy for complex trauma including CBT.
• Ability to manage a broad range of complex clinical work.
• Evidence of having worked as a clinical specialist under supervision in childhood sexual abuse/exploitation.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature in childhood sexual abuse/exploitation.
• Post-qualification experience that supports working with, and addressing issues of, diversity within local communities.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, in-patient and out-patient care settings 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 providing teaching and training to psychologists or other professional groups.
• Experience of carrying out post-doctoral research, audit or service evaluation projects.
• Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in patients with physical health problems.
• Knowledge of forensic interviewing skills for children and young people across the age range and with a range of complex psychological needs.
• Knowledge of acute (e.g. recent) child sexual abuse and exploitation, and issues relevant within this context (including but not limited to safeguarding, criminal justice system/pre-trial therapy, individual and systemic psychosocial needs).
• Experience of supervising assistant and trainee psychologists having completed the relevant training.
• Experience of proposing and implementing service development projects within own service area.
• Experience of working acutely with recent child sexual abuse/exploitation, within a multi-disciplinary service that provides comprehensive care to address the child or young person's holistic psychosocial and medical health needs.
• Experience of forensic interviewing with children and young people.
• Experience of using structured risk assessment protocols and measures.

Skills and Competencies

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment including risk assessment and on-referral, intervention and management.
• Therapeutic skills relevant to the evidence-based management of complex trauma including CBT for PTSD.
• Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations such as working with victims of abuse or trauma, or with people who engage in severe self-harming or aggressive behaviour.
• A high level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level complex, highly technical and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and a wide range of lay and professional persons within and outside the NHS.
• Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to effective team functioning and holding team roles.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate.
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic meetings.
• Ability to maintain concentration and to remain in restricted positions for long periods during observations, assessments and psychological interventions, and to deal with unexpected interruptions or changes during these.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical/counselling psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS/HCPC.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
• Therapeutic skills and accreditation in EMDR relevant to the evidence-based treatment for PTSD.
• Skills in forensic interviewing with children and young people.

Other Requirements

• Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological phenomena, an interest in models of service delivery, and an ability to articulate the value added by clinical/counselling psychology services within the context of multi-disciplinary mental health services.
• Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and ability to 'hold' the stress of others.
• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
• Well developed IT skills including entry and analysis of research data.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Location and Salary

The Havens Pan London - Camberwell, Ladbroke Grove, Whitechapel
£61,927 to £68,676 a year Per annum pro rata incl HCA

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Part-time

Reference number

213-CAY-7002270