Trainee Clinical Associate Psychologist (CAP)

Job summary

We are seeking 15 psychology graduates to undertake Masters level training as Clinical Associate Psychologists to expand and enhance access to psychological care in our Adult Community Mental Health Services across Cornwall. Training commences in January 2023.

CAPs are an exciting new psychology profession whose training has been approved as a Level 7 Degree Apprenticeship. During your training phase of around 18 months, you will be undertaking the Masters Programme in Clinical Associate Psychology with the University of Plymouth, whilst working as part of a multidisciplinary adult community mental health team in Cornwall to develop the clinical skills and competencies essential to the role.

As one of our new CAP trainees you will be employed on a permanent NHS contract. During the apprenticeship phase, whilst undertaking the Masters Programme with the University of Plymouth, you will be remunerated at Band 5 (£27,055 - £32,934). Your MSc registration and course fees will be paid for you, so in return, once qualified, we ask that you commit to stay with the Trust for at least a further two years, during which time we will remunerate you at a Band 6 (£33,706 - £40,588).

You will receive weekly supervision from a qualified practitioner psychologist and will work within an agreed scope of practice, although we expect this to change and expand as your skills and experience increase.

Main duties of the job

For further information on the Plymouth University training, please visit: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/study/apprenticeships/msc-clinical-associate-psychologist

Programme values:

• Cocreation: We are passionate about collaboration - to operate 'with, not to'. We value critical and community-based psychological approaches and social justice.
• Inclusion and diversity: We are passionate about widening participation and increasing diversity and inclusion. We value a wide range of experience and encourage participation with the Plymouth Inclusion, Power and Diversity group.
• Applied Psychology: We are about applied psychology. We aspire to train competent professionals who operate flexibly, effectively and compassionately beyond the boundaries of therapy.
• Reflective and reflexive practice: A willingness to bring awareness and to promote learning and practice to benefit ourselves and the people we work with.
• Empowerment and adult learning: We value a practice-based and grounded approach. We strive for meaningful learning opportunities and trust our CAP apprentices to direct their development.
• Relational and contextually aware: Seeing the whole person and the wider context. We work to promote systemic and relationally aware training contexts that are trauma informed and move beyond a diagnostic paradigm.

The CAP Apprenticeship Standards can be viewed at: https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/clinical-associate-in-psychology-cap-integrated-degree-v1-0

About us

Applicants will need to be self-motivated, have significant prior experience of working in a mental health setting (or other relevant person-facing roles)and have achieved a minimum of a 2:1 Honours Degree in Psychology from a BPS accredited programme (or 2.2 accredited Honours Degree in Psychology with additional appropriate experience to be assessed).

Although we will welcome applications from anyone satisfying the above, please note that if you are considering applying for Clinical Psychology or other doctoral level training courses now or within the next three years, it would not be advisable to apply for the CAP Programme at this stage as it involves a time commitment beyond the initial training period of the apprenticeship. Successful candidates will be eligible to apply for graduate membership of The British Psychological Society (BPS).