Job summary
Are you passionate about improving inpatient care for adults and young people with learning disabilities, autism and behaviour that challenges? Do you want to enable psychologically informed working in assessment and treatment units?
We have a new role at the Kingswood Centre for a Principal Clinical Psychologist to lead our inpatient psychology provision. The post holder will work as part of the multi-disciplinary team to provide psychological assessment, formulation and interventions and facilitate psychological thinking in the wider team. We want to become a trauma informed service, and the post holder will play a key role in developing and implementing this model.
The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.
Main duties of the job
The aim of this role is to provide and develop the clinical psychology and psychotherapy service on inpatient wards for adults and young people with a Learning Disability, as a part of the wider Multi-Disciplinary Team. Working with the inpatient therapies team, qualified psychologist, and Positive Behaviour Support Assistants, this will include providing psychological assessment, formulation and interventions directly and indirectly to service users, their families and wider systems. The post holder will also provide teaching, training, consultation and supervision to the wider team, to facilitate a psychologically informed approach to service users and contributing to the ongoing training and development strategy. This will include contributing to the implementation of trauma informed approaches within the inpatient wards, and working to establish and maintain a psychologically safe environment for patients and staff. The post holder will engage in audit, policy and service development and research within inpatient Learning Disability services and contribute to the wider Learning Disability Clinical Psychology Service. Alongside their own caseload, the post holder will provide supervision and clinical leadership to psychological professionals and the multi-disciplinary team. They will facilitate the development of pre-qualified staff (Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Clinical Psychologists) and contribute to Continuing Professional Development across the service.
About us
As a service we work to improve the lives and recognise the potential of people with learning disabilities through our direct clinical practice and support to other services. We value the rights of people who have a learning disability, including quality of life, health and wellbeing, independence and supporting relationships. We also value the expertise of those who supportpeople with learning disabilities and the support given by families, carers and communities to facilitate the most inclusive and least restrictive care
We aim to provide high quality clinical care for our service users in the least restrictive way, working with people with learning disabilities, their families and communities and other professionals to improve people's quality of life and physical and mental health.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Clinical:
- To work as a senior clinician, providing an advanced, highly specialist psychology service within the inpatient Learning Disability Service
- To provide highly specialist psychological assessments for adults and young people admitted into the Learning Disability wards. The psychologist will be expected to deliver services 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 clients, family members, the MDT and others involved in the clients care.
- To provide expertise and specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals, to assist in the formulation, diagnosis and treatment of clients.
- To provide specialist consultation and guidance to colleagues, other professionals, carers and families on the use of psychological interventions and especially positive behaviour support plans
- To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients.
- To provide expertise and advice to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all staff within the service, and support the implementation of psychological care plans.
- To liaise with other health and social care staff, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to clients.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
- To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of their admission.
Teaching, training, and supervision
- To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
- To be responsible for providing specialist training and supervision for clinical psychology trainees, psychologists, assistant clinical psychologist and other health professionals. This includes the assessment and management of learning disabilities and autism and development of assessment and treatment packages.
- To provide professional and clinical supervision to assistant psychologists, trainee and qualified psychologists in the Psychology Services, as required.
- To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists as required, ensuring the trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to psychological care, and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
- To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or other applied psychologists, as appropriate.
- To provide advice, consultation, training and supervision, where appropriate, to inpatient staff and other health and social care staff working with the client group.
Management, recruitment, policy and service development
.
- To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing, including identifying service need.
- To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to a team, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of service users, and to delegate responsibility in the team when appropriate
- To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team, including its coordination and evaluation
- To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the trust and services policies and procedures.
- To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees and qualified clinical/counselling psychologists.
- To work in a co-ordinated and co-operative way with other psychologists employed within local services and the wider psychology services in the Trust. This will involve participation in the effective development and organisation of the trusts Psychology Services by attendance at meetings as required. The postholder will be required to attend the regular clinical and professional meetings of the Psychology Service within the designated directorate and other departmental meetings
Research and service evaluation
- To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
- To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
- To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to service users and their families
- To ensure the incorporation of psychological frameworks into the evaluation, monitoring and development of the teams operational policies, through the use of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
- To disseminate research from work that the post-holder has been involved in a way that will benefit the services provided by the Trust. This will include feedback from any training opportunities that the post-holder has been able to attend as part of their employment with the Trust
IT responsibilities
- To be ICT literate able to summarise information using excel/powerpoint and prepare reports using word processing packages
- To use video conferencing facilities to deliver psychological interventions where required.
- To use teleconferencing/ video conferencing facilities to participate in meetings where required.
- The post holder will input and maintain appropriate electronic and manual clinical records and statistical data and provide this to the appropriate service manager/head of speciality when necessary.
- The postholder will engage in relevant computer and ICT training as required.
- The postholder will be responsible for ensuring that those psychologists he/she is responsible for/supervises engage in relevant computer and IT training as required and will input and maintain appropriate computer and manual clinical records and statistical data.
General
- To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards
of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and
development programmes, in consultation with the post-holders professional and service
manager(s).
- To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across
the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist
practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining
an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and
related disciplines.
- To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data
entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.
- To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in
relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Clinical:
- To work as a senior clinician, providing an advanced, highly specialist psychology service within the inpatient Learning Disability Service
- To provide highly specialist psychological assessments for adults and young people admitted into the Learning Disability wards. The psychologist will be expected to deliver services 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 clients, family members, the MDT and others involved in the clients care.
- To provide expertise and specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals, to assist in the formulation, diagnosis and treatment of clients.
- To provide specialist consultation and guidance to colleagues, other professionals, carers and families on the use of psychological interventions and especially positive behaviour support plans
- To provide reports and communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients.
- To provide expertise and advice to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all staff within the service, and support the implementation of psychological care plans.
- To liaise with other health and social care staff, from a range of agencies, in the care provided to clients.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
- To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of their admission.
Teaching, training, and supervision
- To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior clinical psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
- To be responsible for providing specialist training and supervision for clinical psychology trainees, psychologists, assistant clinical psychologist and other health professionals. This includes the assessment and management of learning disabilities and autism and development of assessment and treatment packages.
- To provide professional and clinical supervision to assistant psychologists, trainee and qualified psychologists in the Psychology Services, as required.
- To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists as required, ensuring the trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to psychological care, and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
- To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical and/or other applied psychologists, as appropriate.
- To provide advice, consultation, training and supervision, where appropriate, to inpatient staff and other health and social care staff working with the client group.
Management, recruitment, policy and service development
.
- To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing, including identifying service need.
- To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to a team, whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychology staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of service users, and to delegate responsibility in the team when appropriate
- To exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team, including its coordination and evaluation
- To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the trust and services policies and procedures.
- To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees and qualified clinical/counselling psychologists.
- To work in a co-ordinated and co-operative way with other psychologists employed within local services and the wider psychology services in the Trust. This will involve participation in the effective development and organisation of the trusts Psychology Services by attendance at meetings as required. The postholder will be required to attend the regular clinical and professional meetings of the Psychology Service within the designated directorate and other departmental meetings
Research and service evaluation
- To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
- To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
- To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to service users and their families
- To ensure the incorporation of psychological frameworks into the evaluation, monitoring and development of the teams operational policies, through the use of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
- To disseminate research from work that the post-holder has been involved in a way that will benefit the services provided by the Trust. This will include feedback from any training opportunities that the post-holder has been able to attend as part of their employment with the Trust
IT responsibilities
- To be ICT literate able to summarise information using excel/powerpoint and prepare reports using word processing packages
- To use video conferencing facilities to deliver psychological interventions where required.
- To use teleconferencing/ video conferencing facilities to participate in meetings where required.
- The post holder will input and maintain appropriate electronic and manual clinical records and statistical data and provide this to the appropriate service manager/head of speciality when necessary.
- The postholder will engage in relevant computer and ICT training as required.
- The postholder will be responsible for ensuring that those psychologists he/she is responsible for/supervises engage in relevant computer and IT training as required and will input and maintain appropriate computer and manual clinical records and statistical data.
General
- To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards
of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and
development programmes, in consultation with the post-holders professional and service
manager(s).
- To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across
the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist
practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining
an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and
related disciplines.
- To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data
entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.
- To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in
relation to both the specific client group and mental health.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral 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.
Desirable
- Pre or post-qualification training in a relevant area, such as systemic psychotherapy or Positive Behaviour Support
- Completion of Clinical Supervision training to enable the post-holder to provide placements for trainee clinical psychologists
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience of working in Learning Disability services, across a range of abilities, including service users presenting with mental health problems, autistic spectrum disorders, and other challenging behaviours.
- Experience of teaching and training.
- Experience of providing supervision to pre-qualified and qualified psychologists
- Experience of active participation in service and quality improvement projects
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
- Experience 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
- Experience of recruitment and selection
Desirable
- Experience of work as a psychologist in inpatient settings.
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
Knowledge and skills
Essential
- Well 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.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Experience and knowledge of behavioural assessment and intervention methods in people with challenging behavior
- Able to plan, prioritise and organise own service user caseload, treatment programmes (individual or group) involving other staff, and other aspects of the work such as research activity
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
Desirable
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialized psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialized psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
Other
Essential
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Ability 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.
Desirable
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral 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.
Desirable
- Pre or post-qualification training in a relevant area, such as systemic psychotherapy or Positive Behaviour Support
- Completion of Clinical Supervision training to enable the post-holder to provide placements for trainee clinical psychologists
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Experience
Essential
- Substantial experience of working in Learning Disability services, across a range of abilities, including service users presenting with mental health problems, autistic spectrum disorders, and other challenging behaviours.
- Experience of teaching and training.
- Experience of providing supervision to pre-qualified and qualified psychologists
- Experience of active participation in service and quality improvement projects
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
- Experience 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
- Experience of recruitment and selection
Desirable
- Experience of work as a psychologist in inpatient settings.
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
Knowledge and skills
Essential
- Well 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.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
- Experience and knowledge of behavioural assessment and intervention methods in people with challenging behavior
- Able to plan, prioritise and organise own service user caseload, treatment programmes (individual or group) involving other staff, and other aspects of the work such as research activity
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS
- Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
Desirable
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialized psychological therapies.
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialized psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
Other
Essential
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Ability 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.
Desirable
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
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.
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).
Additional information
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).
