Principal Clinical Psychologist

Job responsibilities

Principal Responsibilities:Clinical:

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 and others involved in theclients care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods of proven efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To ensure that all members of the treating service have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide general advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.

To act as care coordinator, if appropriate ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, tasking responsibility for arranging CPA reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in the network of care, and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor and evaluate progress during the course of both uni- disciplinary and multidisciplinary care.

To provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of Psychological care by all members of the treatment service.

Will be required to sit in a constrained position for client therapy and extended assessment sessions.

Will be required to tolerate and manage frequent verbal abuse and occasional physical aggression.

Will be required to deal with the intense emotional atmosphere surrounding therapy contacts which may be highly distressing on a daily basis, and to work with frequent intense concentration for much of the clinical sessions of assessment and therapy. This will include writing reports of a potentially distressing nature e.g., safeguarding adults.

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.

Clinical supervision, teaching and training

To provide clinical placements for trainee psychologists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical professional supervision to recently qualified psychologists attached to the service.

To provide specialist advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the service for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients functioning.

To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychology as appropriate.

To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate

In common with all Clinical Psychologists, receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines.

Receive specific specialist clinical supervision in psychological approaches in trauma focussed / -related mental health issues and presentations.

Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology
• Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice. Post-qualification specialist training in particular psychotherapeutic approaches e.g., cognitive analytic psychotherapy, dialectical behaviour therapy, CFT, EMDR etc.

Knowledge/Experience

Essential

• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
• Knowledge of attachment theory
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience 50 hours supervision in a specific modality, case presentations, group supervision supported by short courses approved by the Psychology Head of Service
• Extensive experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist, including in a specialist area
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in patient and residential care settings 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
• Specialist experience in the area of complex trauma related mental health
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision

Desirable

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care.
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• Experience of working within the specialist field of eating disorders with adults and their carers/families.

Values

Essential

• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented

Skills

Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and 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 nonprofessional group
• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings
• Ability to demonstrate clinical leadership with a service sector
• Ability to contain and work within organisational stress
• Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological approaches and interest in models of service delivery and ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multidisciplinary team working
• IT Literate

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).