clinical or counselling psychologist / psychotherapist

Job responsibilities

Job Purpose

The principal purpose of the job is to improve the psychological health & wellbeing of people within the post holders specialist field of practice.

This will be achieved in this post through undertaking the following areas of responsibility:

1. Providing a Clinical/Counselling Psychology or Psychotherapy service to people referred to the PPT service as a key component of services provided by Devon Partnership Trust

2. Providing local clinical leadership, co-ordination and supervision for trainees and volunteers employed by or attached to the psychology service, under the general direction and supervision of the Professional Lead

3. Carrying a specialist caseload of clients, and providing advice and consultancy to patients, family members, carers and professionals.

4. To provide clinical supervision and consultation to the wider community mental health teams in the locality as part of integrated mental health team working.

5. The post holder will be supported by senior colleagues within their specialist field. The post holder will be expected to make good use of the expertise of others within the service to further develop their clinical skills with this client group.

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

7. The post holder will receive regular professional and clinical supervision in accordance to Trust policy and to Professional Practice Guidelines set out by the British Psychological Society or appropriate designated Professional Body. Observe, and abide by all relevant Professional Codes of Conduct and Practise including the British Psychological Society. The post holder will be fully registered with the Health Professions Council as a condition of employment.

Duties and Responsibilities

Communication and Working Relationships

Clients, family and carers: To communicate in a highly skilled and sensitive manner with clients who may have specific difficulties in understand and/or communicating and who may be hostile, antagonistic or highly emotionally disturbed.

Multidisciplinary team colleagues: To work closely with colleagues in the multi-professional integrated mental health and wellbeing service on a day to day basis.

Health & social care staff: To communicate with a wide range of health & social care staff in hospital and in community settings in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, complex and sensitive information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under the services care. To provide support & guidance in the application of psychological principles and techniques, and to foster reflective practice.

Senior managers & professional staff: To maintain and build good working relationships with senior professional staff and managers across the Psychology and Therapy service and in DPT to foster a positive approach to the integrated mental health and wellbeing service and to enable effective negotiation.

Planning and Organisation

The service: To plan and prioritise own workload, balancing the demands of patient care, support and guidance of carers and professionals and service research and development activities.

To contribute to the planning and organising of the psychology and therapy services within the locality area and to contribute to the development and improvement of provision of psychological services within services to best meet the organisations strategy and priorities.

The multidisciplinary service: To provide psychology/therapy knowledge to the multi-professional planning, development and marketing of mental health and wellbeing services.

Responsibility for Judgement and Analysis

To provide specialist clinical/counselling psychology/psychological therapy expertise and advice.

To provide psychological therapies/other therapies, developing specialist psychological formulations and assessments of clients, formulating plans for their psychological treatment and implementing specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups.

To support the Professional Head, General Manager, Practice and Strategic Development Leads and Professional Leads by undertaking service development and redesign projects and coordinating the resulting work within the team.

Responsibility for Patient/Client Care, Treatment and Therapy

Assessment & intervention: To make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about assessment, treatment and discharge, including the management of risk. To formulate plans for psychological treatment and implementing specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups and to demonstrate awareness of diversity issues.

Consultation & guidance: To provide advice, guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of patient care to colleagues, other service providers, patients, supporters and families.

Policy, Service, Research, Innovation and Improvement

The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines.

Policy & service: To support proposed changes for policy and for service development.

Responsibility for Finance, Equipment and Other Resources

Careful use of equipment.

Responsibility for Supervision, Leadership and Management

Leadership & supervision: To supervise the work of assistants &/or trainees as required. To provide supervision & consultancy to health and social care colleagues.

To support placements for trainee staff in line with professional guidelines

Information Resources and Administrative Duties

To maintain accurate records, compliant with Trust Practice Standards.

To be responsible for using an email account to generate, monitor, and respond to the e-mail traffic by which the Trust conducts much of its internal communication.

Responsibility for Research and Development

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work within the PPT and local mental health services.

To support project work including specific areas of audit, research or service evaluation

As a clinician to be responsible for collecting clinical practice and outcome data that contributes to building practice based evidence and service evaluation.

Freedom to Act

The post holder is accountable for their own professional actions, acting within Trust policies and procedures and Professional Practice Guidelines

To work autonomously within clinical professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the governance of psychological practice within the locality/specialty. Interpretation of professional and Trust guidelines, and implementing policies in conjunction with peers, Head of Profession and General Manager.

To provide specialist clinical/counselling psychology/psychotherapy expertise and advice guidance and consultation on psychological aspects of patient care to colleagues, other service providers, patients, supporters and families.

Any Other Specific Tasks Required

To ensure all clinical care and treatment provided by psychologists/therapists is carried out under appropriate supervision and leadership.

To ensure that all relevant staff groups continuously update the skills and techniques relevant to their clinical work.

Qualifications

Essential

• Qualified Clinical or Counselling Psychologist (D.Clin.Psychol. or equivalent) and eligible for Chartered Clinical or Counselling Psychologist Status in the British Psychological Society and registered with HCPC. Psychological Therapists need to be trained to Masters level or equivalent in a specific psychological therapy and registered with an appropriate recognised professional body e.g. UKCP, BABCP.
• Further training or experience in clinical specialism
• IT Skills

Desirable

• Further training in related area.
• Further training in at least one (other) psychological therapy

Experience

Essential

• Experience, and/or training in diversity awareness and social inequality
• Experience of working under supervision in secondary care adult mental health services

Desirable

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision

knowledge

Essential

• Knowledge and familiarity of specialist services; and of the services in the NHS where psychology and psychological therapies is commonly applied.
• An understanding of providing psychological therapy for service users presenting with Severe and Complex mental health problems.

skills and abilities

Essential

• Proven organisational, planning and time management skills
• Ability to integrate complex data; make highly skilled evaluations and decisions; and take a long term perspective.
• Excellent verbal, nonverbal and written communication skills

Desirable

• Project management skills / experience

physical skills

Essential

• Presentable
• Clear telephone voice
• Calm, methodical approach, friendly but concise
• Good communication skills when presenting / facilitating to varying groups of people

other skills

Essential

• Ability to work independently and use initiative within a service consisting of a network of teams.
• Ability to work as a member of a clinical team.
• Ability to tolerate ambiguity, and maintain own morale and motivation in challenging service delivery contexts.

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).