Senior Practitioner Psychologist

Job responsibilities

Scope & Authority:

To provide a qualified, high-quality specialist psychology service to individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams, in line with best, evidence-based practice and trust care pathways.

To undertake assessment for gender dysphoria and make recommendations for treatment (including commencement of sex hormones and surgery)

To be responsible for holding and managing a clinical caseload and to exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the planning and prioritising of own workload and the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients, within the bounds of the service operational policy.

To use analytical and judgment skills and be responsible for taking clinical management decisions in complex clinical issues.

To clinically supervise assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists junior psychologists, psychological therapists, counsellors or students that may join the service, and other staff as appropriate.

To professionally supervise and, when appropriate, manage, any assistant psychologists and trainee psychologists that may join the service.

To provide consultation, mentorship, supervision and advice about psychological issues to other members of the team/service and other professionals working with service users, across a range of agencies/ settings as appropriate.

To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team.

To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit, and to advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To utilise research skills to undertake service evaluation, audit and research as appropriate and disseminate the results in the service and nationally.

To propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the service.

Clinical:

1. To undertake assessment for gender dysphoria, making recommendations for treatment (including commencement of sex hormones and surgery) to be included on treatment plans agreed with the client.

2. Where treatment plans include specialist psychological assessments of clients, undertake these, 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 the clients care, in order to reach a psychological formulation of the clients difficulties.

3. 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 based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

4. 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.

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

6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulations, diagnoses and treatment plans.

7. 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.

8. To undertake risk assessment, formulation and management for individual clients with complex presentations and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment, formulation and management.

9. 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 both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

10. To promote and participate in multi-disciplinary team working, development and liaison.

11. To promote actively, user and carer involvement in care planning and service development.

12. To be up to date with both de-escalation, physical breakaway and PMVA techniques appropriate to the service environment.

Teaching, training, and supervision:

1. To receive regular clinical professional supervision.

2. To gain additional highly specialist experience and skills relevant to applied psychology, in line with a professional development plan and in keeping with service needs (as agreed with the professional lead).

3. To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other team members psychological work as appropriate.

4. To provide clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists that may join the service, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to client care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.

5. To provide professional and clinical supervision of trainee and assistant applied psychologists, as well as more junior qualified psychologists, psychological therapists, counsellors or students that may join the service.

6. To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of applied psychology and psychological therapy, as appropriate.

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

Management, Leadership, Recruitment, Policy and Service Development

1. To participate as a clinician in identifying and implementing the development of a high quality, responsible and accessible service, in consultation with the team manager and supervisor.

2. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the teams operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

3. To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

4. To contribute psychological knowledge and expertise to policy and service development through participation, where practical, in regional multidisciplinary meetings and special interest groups, working parties etc that may impact on the functioning of the service.

5. To participate in the management of psychological resources available to the team, in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of service users.

6. To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee applied psychologists, within the framework of the team/services policies and procedures.

7. To be involved, as appropriate, in the short listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists and other staff as appropriate.

8. To provide effective leadership and management to staff which promotes high performance standards both individually and as a team, in the achievement of the Trusts objectives and priorities. The Trusts success will be dependent on all managers playing an active role to make sure the existing areas of good employment practice are universally embedded within the organisation.

Research and Service Evaluation

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

2. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.

3. To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

Research and Service Evaluation

See job description

A - Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology [or its equivalent for those trained before 1996 or outside the UK*] as approved by the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HCPC).

Desirable

• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

B - Knowledge/Experience

Essential

• 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.
• Demonstrate specialist experience gained post-qualification of working as an applied psychologist with evidence of having received a substantial amount of clinical supervision (normally in the region of approximately 50 hours).
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• 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 teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Experience, knowledge and / or a commitment to being trained to work with the particular client group served by the team/service.
• Knowledge of guidance and legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• High level of knowledge and skills in neuropsychology and evidence of further practice and/or training since qualification.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC.
• Understanding of the needs of the Trans, Non-Binary and Intersex (TNBI) community.

Desirable

• Experience of the TNBI community

C - Skills

Essential

• Communication/Relationship skills: ?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 non-professional groups.
• Analytical & Judgement skills: ?Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment formulation and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Planning & Organisational skills: ?Ability to work within a large geographical area effectively, managing travel arrangements and using creative working solutions. ?Ability to plan and manage a complex work load with competing demands. ?Ability to plan and implement projects
• People Management/Leadership/Resources ?Skills in clinical supervision of others. ?Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• IT skills: ?Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings. ?Ability to use electronic clinical record systems. ?Experience of software e.g. SPSS, EXCEL and ACCESS
• Physical skills: ?Ability to use a keyboard /computer. ?Able to carry out PMVA interventions

D - Abilities

Essential

• Mental Effort: ?Ability to maintain sustained concentration over considerable time and to be able to manage a high number of competing work demands. ?Ability to meet competing deadlines.
• Emotional Effort: ?Ability to deal with distressing or emotional circumstances and take care of own well being on a very regular and frequent basis. ?Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours on a regular basis. ?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
• Working Conditions: ?Ability to manage exposure to upsetting distressing or challenging behaviours ?Ability to be able to use a PC.

E: Approach/Values

Essential

• Demonstrate support for the values and beliefs of the Care Group and those of the Trust
• Demonstrate an understanding of the practices of Human Rights in the delivery of this role
• Commitment to empowering service users, their relatives and carers at all levels.
• Commitment to multidisciplinary team working.
• The belief that people with mental and physical illness have the capacity for personal growth and learning, and the same goals as any other person. The belief that service users have the intrinsic right to be involved in all aspects of their care, including the development and evaluation of the service.
• Ability to travel across sites.
• Supports the values and beliefs of Biopsychosocial models of work.
• Punctual and flexible across hours of work when required.

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).