Preceptorship Clinical Psychologist Band 7-8a

North West Borough Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

United Kingdom

GBP 40,000 - 60,000

Job description

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore, we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.

Job overview

Available as a Band 7 Preceptorship for newly/recently qualified practitioner in the Specialist Community Adult Learning Disability Team, based at Willis House, Whiston, Merseyside.

We are seeking a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist who is highly motivated and enthusiastic about working with adults with a learning disability. We are pleased to consider applications from recently qualified practitioners to commence in a Preceptorship Post (commence at AfC Band 7).

This post is based with the St Helens and Knowsley Specialist Community Learning Disability Team within the Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. We are committed to supporting your professional development, with service development opportunities and regular clinical supervision.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be required to work as part of our established and highly supportive multi-disciplinary team. Core clinical functions include aspects of assessment, intervention, consultation, clinical team formulation, training, working with and across multi-disciplinary teams and systems, and supporting our programme of audit and research.

The post is supervised by the Consultant Clinical Psychologist and jointly managed with the team manager. You will be joining an expanding group of psychologists with a wide range of experience and interests.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide a qualified clinical psychology service according to a plan agreed with the multi-disciplinary team and within the overall framework of policies and procedures. To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy while offering advice and consultation on service users' psychological care to psychologist and non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines. The psychology team provides a highly specialist service providing assessment and intervention to service users with learning disabilities and histories of complex problems, including offending and challenging behaviours.

To provide highly specialist psychological assessments of service users referred to psychology based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data 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 service user, family members and others involved in the service user's care.
To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a service user's mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the service user's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
To exercise autonomous responsibility 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 skilled 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 work with other professions to deliver therapy in an integrated manner.
To provide highly specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to service user' formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all service user of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the service user group.
To ensure that all members of the service user's clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for the understanding and care of forensic service user, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological knowledge, research and theory.
To actively undertake and co-ordinate risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice and liaise with other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
To work as a member of a community based and ward based multi-disciplinary team, exercising clinical responsibility for the service user' psychological care-planning within this role and being part of wider MDT decisions around clinical decisions, capacity, risk and discharge planning.
To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service user under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
To provide staff supervision/reflective space for ward based staff.
Has line management responsibility for assistant clinical psychologists and/or trainee clinical psychologists or other members of the psychology team as needed.
To manage the workloads of assistant clinical psychologists and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/service's policies and procedures and have clinical responsibility for their work.
To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant clinical psychologists and/or trainee clinical psychologists or other members of the psychology team as needed.
To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or counselling psychology and other disciplines, as appropriate, including the supervision of clinical psychologists in training.
To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the service user group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team's operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
To initiate and undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
To represent the views of the psychology team on such committees and working parties.
To contribute to divisional policies and procedures and feedback progress within senior divisional meetings.
To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the psychology team's operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
To lead the relevant research activity within the psychology team as required by the service.
To establish and maintain research partnerships with relevant internal and external individuals and groups.
To foster and inspire innovative ideas and developments aimed at enhancing the experience of service users and carers, and support their development through research and/or service development.
To undertake service development, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.
To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing and to lead on these projects.
To lead on service development projects and/or care pathways within the division, liaising with other individuals through this work, including co-production with service users. To feedback progress within senior divisional meetings.
To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists, and of team members from other professions, where appropriate.
To exercise responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the team, in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of service users; and to assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, training and project work.
To contribute to the training and support of other staff in psychological care, including contributing to the organisation of training seminars and conferences for others.
To maintain up to date knowledge of clinical and policy related best practice and new developments in the field of personality disorder.
To manage information resources relating to this and ensure their wide availability, working closely with Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust knowledge, services and relevant external partners.
To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning the historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users.
To contribute to the development of systems to support, mentor and supervise service users working in the service.
To be engaged and participate in the future development of the psychology team and promote a culture of continuous service improvement.
To act as part of a gate-keeping team in assessing individuals as part of pre-admission assessments.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

A First or Upper Second honours degree in psychology OR a lower class with a post-graduate qualification, (e.g.: Master's degree).
ECDL or demonstrable proficiency with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Publisher and SPSS.
Post-graduate doctoral level training in Clinical Psychology as accredited by the BPS.
Registration with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist.

Desirable criteria

Further training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice, autism, personality disorder and/or research design and analysis.
Post-doctoral training in additional specialised areas of psychological practice such as risk assessment; autism; positive behaviour support, personality disorder; substance use; and/or specific therapeutic modalities.

KNOWLEDGE/ EXPERIENCE:

Essential criteria

Assessed experience of work for a minimum of six months within the field of learning disability.
Post-qualification experience of working with individuals with histories of problems of complex, multi-factorial origin.
Experience of working with a variety of service user groups, across the whole life course and a full range of care settings, maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and threats of physical abuse.
Experience of exercising clinical responsibility for service user's psychological care and treatment, both as a profession and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.

Desirable criteria

Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team/ experience of working alongside staff from other disciplines.
Experience of multi-professional management of teams and/or services within learning disability.
Experience of representing the profession in local policy fora.
Experience of the application of psychological theories within different cultural contexts.
Personal experience of mental health problems.

Skills

Essential criteria

Doctoral level knowledge of clinical psychology in relation to working with people with learning disability and behaviours that challenge/mental health/offending.
Skills in the use of methods of psychological assessment & formulation.
An excellent ability to communicate, both orally and in writing, complex, technical and clinically sensitive information, to service users, their families and a wide range of professionals within and outside of the NHS.
Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology.
Knowledge of legislation and the implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the client group and mental health issues in general.
Ability to identify, provide, and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and challenging behaviours.
Ability to identify and employ where appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviours.
Ability to develop and use complex multi-media material for presentations to the public, professionals and academic settings.

Desirable criteria

An ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to a specialist community learning disability context.
Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist psychological interventions in specific, difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnosis issues, autism, additional disabilities and drug/alcohol issues etc.)
Record of having published in either peer reviewed academic or professional journals and/or books.
Ability to articulate and interpret the role of the profession of clinical psychology based upon an understanding of the framework of government and national professional policy.

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email recruitment@merseycare.nhs.uk to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team (01516761452 or email sensitive@dbs.gsi.gov.uk) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Job Description (PDF, 483.2KB)
OH risk ID B7_8a Clinical Psychologist (PDF, 160.4KB)
A Great Place to Work (PDF, 2.1MB)
Our People Promise and Charter (PDF, 5.8MB)
Employee Benefits (PDF, 950.7KB)