Job summary
We are looking for a highly motivated music therapist to provide a service to our Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit, which is situated in Hammersmith Mental Health Unit.
The postholder will provide group and individual interventions using trauma-informed approaches to individuals with complex psycho-social issues in acute states of mind. They will develop strong links with the team on the ward and across the unit as a whole.
The arts therapies are an established part of provision in West London Mental Health Trust, working across the three boroughs of Ealing, Hounslow and Hammersmith and Fulham, managed by a Head of Arts Therapies. The postholder will be well supported by links to the wider arts therapies team and to the psychology and occupational therapy services.
In order to attend arts therapies team meetings and supervision group, the postholder will be expected to work Tuesdays.
Main duties of the job
You will conduct music therapy groups and individual sessions for service users on the PICU. Key skills and qualities will be flexibility, adaptiveness, an understanding the range of ways music therapy can benefit service users and a strong desire to engage individuals who may be in confused, frightened or agitated states of mind.
This will include adapting practice to the different cultural backgrounds and other characteristics of service users. You will support multi disciplinary work and take opportunities to collaborate with other professions as they arise. You will educate nurses, doctors and other colleagues on the ward about the contribution music therapy can make as well as learning from their distinctive skills and perspectives
As a band 7 you will show clinical leadership and contribute to initiatives such as reducing restrictive practice and trauma informed care. You will advocate for the patient voice on the ward and within the unit as well as for staff wellbeing.
About us
West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK.
Our 3,982 staff care for people in hospital and in the community, helping them to recover and go on to lead full and productive lives. We aim to be the best organisation of our kind in the country.
We provide care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units.
We're rated good overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Together, we're committed to promoting hope and wellbeing, working with patients, service users, carers, families and partners across the communities we serve.
We are keen to ensure that our workforce reflects the community it serves, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ and experience of mental illness.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The post holder will contribute to an ethos of care underpinned by a number of guiding principles:
- Trauma-informed care
- Positive and proactive
- Least restrictive practice
- Understanding holistically
- Safety is a priority
The characteristics of the core population are people with enduring mental health needs (psychosis; bi-polar; complex depression; trauma) and complex emotional needs, with an acuity and risk profile which means they require inpatient care or care within crisis services. These service users often find it difficult to:
- make or maintain relationships
- connect with other people, including friends, family or work colleagues
- manage and control their emotions
- cope with life and difficult feelings
- manage their behaviours and impulses
Service users seen by the post holder will include those who have experienced high levels of distress and common mental health difficulties. Some service users may present with a high level of risk to both themselves and sometimes to other people. This post will be based predominantly at Lakeside Mental Health Unit and Community Mental Health facilities across the borough but some meetings happen on Microsoft Teams.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The post holder will contribute to an ethos of care underpinned by a number of guiding principles:
- Trauma-informed care
- Positive and proactive
- Least restrictive practice
- Understanding holistically
- Safety is a priority
The characteristics of the core population are people with enduring mental health needs (psychosis; bi-polar; complex depression; trauma) and complex emotional needs, with an acuity and risk profile which means they require inpatient care or care within crisis services. These service users often find it difficult to:
- make or maintain relationships
- connect with other people, including friends, family or work colleagues
- manage and control their emotions
- cope with life and difficult feelings
- manage their behaviours and impulses
Service users seen by the post holder will include those who have experienced high levels of distress and common mental health difficulties. Some service users may present with a high level of risk to both themselves and sometimes to other people. This post will be based predominantly at Lakeside Mental Health Unit and Community Mental Health facilities across the borough but some meetings happen on Microsoft Teams.
Person Specification
Qualifications and Training
Essential
- MA in arts therapies
- Health and Care Professions Council registrant
Desirable
- Training in another psychological therapies modality e.g. Mentalization Based Therapy.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of providing music therapy in an acute mental health setting
- Experience of working in a multi-cultural service
- Experience of work in MDT setting and communicating complex information therein
- Experience of personal therapy
- Experience and understanding of a wide range of art processes and equipment
- Experience of assessing and formulating risk and supporting a reduction in risk
Desirable
- Providing individual & group music therapy in an acute environment post qualification
- Experience of work on a PICU
- Experience of work with interpreters
- Lived experience of mental health difficulties.
- Experience of providing arts therapies on acute wards and on a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit.
- Experience of leading or participating in reflective practice, case formulation meetings or team debriefs.
Knowledge and Skills
Essential
- Specialist professional knowledge acquired through MA/MSc or equivalent level plus specialist short courses, CPD, clinical supervision of practice.
- Ability to organise and prioritise caseload and other responsibilities
- Ability to explain arts therapies practice to a wide range of professionals, service users and other stakeholders.
- Knowledge of other modalities (e.g. medical model, systemic, behavioural) sufficient to contribute to multi-disciplinary planning and service provision.
- To understand psychiatric diagnosis and the requirement to communicate about diagnoses, whilst also acknowledging the alternative in the form of a formulation.
- Able to make judgements based on psychological knowledge, clinical information and environmental events within a session and make decisions on this basis e.g. with regard to feedback to nursing or other staff.
- To judge when a service user or colleague might need emotional support and to show interest in understanding how they are feeling and help them think through ways of coping that are known to help reduce distress safely.
- Ability to communicate complex, sensitive and potentially contentious information to service users in a way that addresses psychological resistance and the propensity of the service users towards hostile reactions.
- Able to function in potentially traumatic circumstances and in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g. in dealing with service users with serious mental illness, histories of homicide and serious violence, self-harm, sexual abuse).
- Awareness of diversity of cultural norms and being able to respond to this appropriately
Desirable
- To have an understanding of trauma-informed care and to understand the concept of stabilisation, psychological containment and validation and the rational for these in an acute ward.
- To understand the 5Ps formulation model and have the ability to describe this to patients.
- Knowledge of Autism and of Positive Behaviour Support
- IT skills: e.g. Word; Excel, Photoshop.
Personal Qualities
Essential
- Ability to discuss personal reactions (thoughts, feelings, behaviours) in clinical supervision, reflective practice, formulation meetings to plan safer therapeutic care.
- To be courageous and interested in developing confidence in expressing an opinion which is different from the dominant view, but might be more helpful in supporting a service user.
- A desire to motivate, encourage, support others, and contribute to a collective care offer from the inpatient MDT that results in a positive experience for staff and service users.
- A desire to learn and use non-pathological language and terms which imply chronic disability and negatively impact of self-esteem and undermine recovery.
- To be able to tolerate witnessing extreme behaviour and listening to life histories which might contain disturbing facts (sexual trauma, physical abuse, neglect, violence, political and civil wars which deviate from the dominant accepted norm in the UK).
- To be interested in a wide range of psychological concepts and show enthusiasm and interest in learning about a range of approaches (Systemic, behavioural, Trauma-informed, CBT, DBT, ACT, CAT, Schema).
- To have personal values aligned to forming positive relationships with service users and colleagues and a willingness to show behaviours that correspond to the Trust's Values.
OTHER
Essential
- Knowledge of Standards of practice of the Health Care Professionals Council.
- To be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct.
- To adhere to the security procedures on the ward.
Desirable
- Membership of a relevant professional special interest group
- Membership of relevant practice research network
Person Specification
Qualifications and Training
Essential
- MA in arts therapies
- Health and Care Professions Council registrant
Desirable
- Training in another psychological therapies modality e.g. Mentalization Based Therapy.
Experience
Essential
- Experience of providing music therapy in an acute mental health setting
- Experience of working in a multi-cultural service
- Experience of work in MDT setting and communicating complex information therein
- Experience of personal therapy
- Experience and understanding of a wide range of art processes and equipment
- Experience of assessing and formulating risk and supporting a reduction in risk
Desirable
- Providing individual & group music therapy in an acute environment post qualification
- Experience of work on a PICU
- Experience of work with interpreters
- Lived experience of mental health difficulties.
- Experience of providing arts therapies on acute wards and on a Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit.
- Experience of leading or participating in reflective practice, case formulation meetings or team debriefs.
Knowledge and Skills
Essential
- Specialist professional knowledge acquired through MA/MSc or equivalent level plus specialist short courses, CPD, clinical supervision of practice.
- Ability to organise and prioritise caseload and other responsibilities
- Ability to explain arts therapies practice to a wide range of professionals, service users and other stakeholders.
- Knowledge of other modalities (e.g. medical model, systemic, behavioural) sufficient to contribute to multi-disciplinary planning and service provision.
- To understand psychiatric diagnosis and the requirement to communicate about diagnoses, whilst also acknowledging the alternative in the form of a formulation.
- Able to make judgements based on psychological knowledge, clinical information and environmental events within a session and make decisions on this basis e.g. with regard to feedback to nursing or other staff.
- To judge when a service user or colleague might need emotional support and to show interest in understanding how they are feeling and help them think through ways of coping that are known to help reduce distress safely.
- Ability to communicate complex, sensitive and potentially contentious information to service users in a way that addresses psychological resistance and the propensity of the service users towards hostile reactions.
- Able to function in potentially traumatic circumstances and in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g. in dealing with service users with serious mental illness, histories of homicide and serious violence, self-harm, sexual abuse).
- Awareness of diversity of cultural norms and being able to respond to this appropriately
Desirable
- To have an understanding of trauma-informed care and to understand the concept of stabilisation, psychological containment and validation and the rational for these in an acute ward.
- To understand the 5Ps formulation model and have the ability to describe this to patients.
- Knowledge of Autism and of Positive Behaviour Support
- IT skills: e.g. Word; Excel, Photoshop.
Personal Qualities
Essential
- Ability to discuss personal reactions (thoughts, feelings, behaviours) in clinical supervision, reflective practice, formulation meetings to plan safer therapeutic care.
- To be courageous and interested in developing confidence in expressing an opinion which is different from the dominant view, but might be more helpful in supporting a service user.
- A desire to motivate, encourage, support others, and contribute to a collective care offer from the inpatient MDT that results in a positive experience for staff and service users.
- A desire to learn and use non-pathological language and terms which imply chronic disability and negatively impact of self-esteem and undermine recovery.
- To be able to tolerate witnessing extreme behaviour and listening to life histories which might contain disturbing facts (sexual trauma, physical abuse, neglect, violence, political and civil wars which deviate from the dominant accepted norm in the UK).
- To be interested in a wide range of psychological concepts and show enthusiasm and interest in learning about a range of approaches (Systemic, behavioural, Trauma-informed, CBT, DBT, ACT, CAT, Schema).
- To have personal values aligned to forming positive relationships with service users and colleagues and a willingness to show behaviours that correspond to the Trust's Values.
OTHER
Essential
- Knowledge of Standards of practice of the Health Care Professionals Council.
- To be capable of being guided by precedent, clearly defined policies, procedures and codes of conduct.
- To adhere to the security procedures on the ward.
Desirable
- Membership of a relevant professional special interest group
- Membership of relevant practice research network
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.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
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.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
