Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced Psychologist to lead a co-produced, innovative mental health and well-being service that is both Psychologically-led and Occupational Therapy (OT)-led called, Step and Thrive.

Step and Thrive is for working age adults (18 to 65 years old) who are impacted by severe and enduring mental health issues and is a new pathway being developed as part of the community transformation of adult mental health services.

This service will provide accessible, community-based support in the form of psychologically-informed and OT-informed activities, groups and social spaces that address the holistic well-being needs ( emotional, social, occupational, practical, etc) that contribute to poor mental health.

This is a co-produced service that blends psychological and OT expertise alongside lived experience to ensure that support is accessible, relevant and effective.

The service draws largely on community psychology, narrative, trauma informed and attachment-based principles. The service seeks to create community integration by working alongside community organisations and support people to access relevant and sustainable support outside of the NHS.

Main duties of the job

The post-holder will :

• Provide trauma-informed adapted evidence-based psychological interventions in community-based settings.
• Provide psychological formulation and consultation to contribute to the care plans.
• Work collaboratively with our Employment Specialists and Voluntary Sector colleagues.
• Provide specialist psychological assessment, treatment and consultation on clients' psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to non-professional carers
• Supervise psychological assessment and therapy provided by attached doctoral trainees and supervise psychologically driven treatment interventions by other members of the MDT.
• Provide training, supervision and support to other clinical members of the team, who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
• Work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychology practice within the service / team.
• Utilize skills for research and audit and contribute to policy and service development
• Support Enfield Adult Psychology Lead and Community Engagement Team Manager in implementing post-incident support and reflective practice.

About us

Working for North London Mental Health Partnership

The partnership between Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust (BEH) and Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (C&I) is going from strength to strength since it was originally established in 2021 forming the North London Mental Health Partnership.

Why choose to join the Partnership?

• We believe that by working together, our two Trusts can achieve more for the residents of North Central London and our patients than we can by working apart.
• Deliver the best care using the most up-to-date practise in supporting those with mental health illnesses.
• Transforming and creating a positive environment for our service users, staff and visitors.
• Creating and working together to become a great place to work for all our staff.
• We offer flexible working, a wide range of health and wellbeing initiatives, NHS Pension and so much more.
• Generous Annual Leave Allowance
• NHS Discounts in a large variety of retail stores and services.
• We have excellent internal staff network support groups.

Job description

Job responsibilities

For a detailed job description, person specification and main responsibilities, please refer to the Job Description and Person Spec attached to this advert.

Person Specification

Qualifications / Registrations

Essential

• oDoctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, as accredited by the BPS.
• oEligibility for Chartered Status with BPS
• oRegistered with HCPC as a psychologist

Desirable

oPre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and / or other fields of applied psychology or equivalent

Skills / Abilities

Essential

• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• oSkills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• oWell-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and / or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• oSkills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
• oAn ability to use and demonstrate psychological model-based formulations as part of clinical and care management planning

Desirable

• oKnowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups ( PTSD, psychosis, personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• oKnowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• oDirect experience of working in a co-produced way
• oExperience of working in or alongside the voluntary sector

Experience / Knowledge

Essential

• oExperience, including in the NHS, of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community / teams, primary care and in patient and day settings.
• oExperience 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.
• oExperience of running a range of groups / workshops / courses for service users and their carers.
• oMulti-disciplinary team working and involvement in developing Risk management plans and supporting care of service users.
• oExperience of teaching, training and / or supervision.

Desirable

• oExperience of Community Psychology, Narrative Therapy or Attachment / Mentalisation based approaches
• oExperience of working in the community psychology-based projects / services
• oExperience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• oExperience and knowledge of the Trauma Informed Care framework in clinical settings
• oExperience of supporting reflective practice
• oExperience of participating in or supporting post-incident support
• oExperience of service innovation and development

Personal Qualities

Essential

• oAn enthusiasm and commitment to the psychological treatment of those who don't meet the criteria for secondary services
• oAbility to work independently, reliably, and consistently with work agreed and managed at regular intervals.
• oAbility to maintain professional boundaries and form positive therapeutic relationship with service users and carers
• oAbility to contain and work with organisational stress and ability to "hold" the stress of others
• oAbility to demonstrate Trust Values
• oAbility to work creatively to engage difficult to reach service users

Desirable

oA commitment to the evaluation of services, enthusiasm for both multi-professional and uni-professional audit

Other Requirements

Essential

• oAbility to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• oAbility to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• oIT skills including e-mail, word processing and basic data base.
• oAbility and willingness to travel around the designated area of work and to work flexibly and sometimes antisocial hours

Desirable

• oExperience of working within a multicultural framework.
• oAbility to support MDT members in the provision of psychologically driven interventions
4 hours ago