Clinical/Forensic/Counselling Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

KR 1 Clinical and Client Care

To provide direct psychological care (assessment and intervention) and support the delivery of psychologically informed care by all disciplines within the service.

To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of community clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

To provide culturally appropriate psychological therapy interventions with service users, carers, or families of referred clients when required.

To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of psychological assessment and formulation and treatment outcome in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.

To undertake psychometric and neuropsychological testing as appropriate, including selecting the appropriate tests, administering, and scoring the tests in accordance with the manual, and interpreting the findings in the context of all relevant information.

To undertake risk assessment, risk monitoring and risk management for individual clients in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, support, and management.

To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory agencies as appropriate.

Responsibilities for team and service clinical functioning:

Attend and contribute to directorate level meetings and forums, as directed.

Contribute to the delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse communities.

To be proactive in challenging discrimination.

To advise other colleagues on specialist psychological care of clients.

To liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with clients in order to develop and review care plans.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

To liaise with the service/s MDT and other professionals.

Implement relevant policies and procedures for the safe running of the service.

Service development:

To engage in service improvements through audits and quality improvement initiatives.

To ensure the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.

Advise professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To participate in Trust and Directorate strategic development and implementation of new initiatives (e.g. national guidelines), including through membership of committees and/or working parties.

Apply clinical governance standards within the service and ensure that these are maintained and improved.

Provide high quality services that are managed efficiently, according to the overall requirements of the Trust, NHS and government guidance and standards.

Participate in service outcome monitoring.

Management and supervision:

To provide line management to designated assistant psychologists.

Provide supervision to students and trainees and to multi-disciplinary colleagues delivering psychological interventions.

To support recruitment of assistant psychologists to the service.

For those line managing, to ensure local standards are implemented for the allocation and review of work, job planning, review of performance, sickness management and initial stages of grievance or disciplinary action.

To oversee quality line management and supervision within the team structure, ensuring that staff and trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to health care, and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

To provide highly specialist advice, consultation and training of staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate. This may include work with the wider Criminal Justice System and Childrens Services.

Teaching and Training:

To provide and support specialist clinical placements for students and trainees in applied psychological practice.

To contribute to the delivery of teaching and training to junior psychological practitioners and specialist training to other professions.

To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in psychological therapy and risk assessment / management and to implement knowledge gained in practice.

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.

To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of psychological therapies and risk assessment / management, over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post-holder is employed.

Record-keeping and Information Governance:

To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has management or leadership responsibility.

Research and development:

To undertake the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits, and quality improvement projects relevant to the service and the directorate research agenda.

To oversee the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits by students and trainees.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development:

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a senior psychological practitioner according to professional and Trust guidelines and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

To attend Reflective Practice reliably.

To maintain own Continuing Professional Development in line with registered body and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies.

To comply with the registered body Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics/Standards of Proficiency.

To ensure that all psychological practitioners for whom the post-holder has leadership or management responsibility maintain professional standards, adhere to all organisational HR policies and procedures.

To ensure that all psychological practitioners for whom the post-holder has management responsibility continue professional development, assessing and evaluating to ensure they acquire the necessary skills, competencies, and experience to contribute effectively to health care.

Maintaining registration and standards of practice according to the employer and any regulating bodies e.g. the UKCP, BABCP & HCPC etc.

Ensuring all aspects of confidentiality relating to both the service and individuals are maintained at all times.

General:

To travel to clinical venues, training activities and meetings as appropriate as part of wider pan London LPP service when required.

To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group and follow Trust policies relating to its management.

To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations of people in distress or in crisis and who may be abusive and to support others involved in such situations.

To be proficient in the use of IT for purposes such as email, electronic calendar, intranet, video calls and electronic clinical records.

To be familiar with word processing, database, and statistical packages, and to use such packages appropriately as necessary.

To maintain high standards of clinical record keeping, including electronic clinical records and report writing, in accordance with professional codes of practice and Trust policies and procedures.

To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues pertaining to the client group.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Registration with professional body or regulatory body as appropriate to psychological therapy discipline i.e. HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings

Desirable

• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• Experience of working within forensic mental health/ criminal justice system.
• Experience of the application of psychological therapy in different cultural contexts.

Communication

Essential

• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Wide range of skills and ability to teach and train others
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex and sensitive information to professionals, service users and families

Clinical Skills

Essential

• Ability to maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Lewisham Probation Office/Holyrood House, London Bridge

Lewisham

SE13 6JP

Employer's website

http://oxleas.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)