Applied / Assistant Psychologist

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical Activities

To contribute to the provision of a Psychology service to the Eating Disorders Team.

To undertake protocol based psychological assessments of clients, including the use of 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.

To assist in the formulation and delivery of care plans involving the psychological treatment and/or management of a clients problems, under the supervision of a qualified professional Clinical Psychologist, in both community and in-patient/residential settings.

To maintain an appropriate caseload for psychological interventions with individual clients, and carers, in a variety of locations, under the supervision of a qualified professional Clinical Psychologist.

To provide information regarding the service and eating disorders to parents and carers in a sensitive and informative way where they be psychological barriers to understanding.

To assist in the running of therapeutic groups for clients and/or carers.

To work with staff to assess clients in a variety of settings and review their care in preparation for multi-disciplinary reviews.

To assist in the development of a psychologically based framework of understanding/care to the benefit of all clients of he of the service, across all settings where care takes place.

To attend and contribute to appropriate multi-disciplinary meetings.

To Liaise and work closely with other services within the wider mental health service.

Management and Personal Development

To receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with professional practice guidelines.

To receive appropriate managerial supervision by the named CEDs professional in the locality

To contribute to the training and support of other staff involved with psychological care.

To undertake compulsory and statutory training relevant to the post and attend Continuing Professional Development s as appropriate to the post.

Strategic Development, Planning and Organising

To assist with the design, and routinely contribute to the implementation of service audit and service evaluation.

Contribute to local and national research projects under the supervision of a Clinical Psychologist.

To undertake searches of evidence-based literature and research to assist qualified Clinical Psychologists/Team in monitoring developments in evidence based practice.

To utilise clinical outcome assessment tools.

To contribute to the recording of clinical data using the Electronic Patient Health Records software, and the recording of clinical activity data using the Integrated Care System.

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

To maintain keyboard skills to Royal Society of Arts (RSA) 1 standard, or above, and general computer literacy skills to European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) standard, or above.

To utilise computerised programmes for the purposes of service audit and research, including the use of databases and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

To maintain and develop databases relevant to appropriate audit and evaluation of the service.

Communication and Working Relationship Skills

Team colleagues: To work closely with colleagues in the CEDs team and attend MDT meetings

Senior managers & professional staff: To maintain and build good working relationships with senior professional staff and managers in the CEDs team and to enable effective negotiation.

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

Analytical and Judgemental Skills

Solid analytic and judgement skills will be necessary relative to the need to carry out research into patient experience and therapeutic effectiveness.

Planning and Organisational Skills

To plan and prioritise own workload with the help of management supervision.

Responsibility for Patient/Client Care, Treatment and Therapy

Consultation & guidance: To provide valuable feedback to individual clinicians and to CEDs management concerning patient experience of services as well as therapeutic outcomes.

Responsibility for Policy and Service Development Implementation

Policy & service To follow policy guidance in own role and to comment on proposed policy changes and service developments.

Responsibility for Finance, Equipment and Other Resources

Careful use of equipment

Responsibility for Human Resources, e.g. Supervision, Training, HR Advice and Management

To assist the work of less experienced assistants &/or trainees as required.

Responsibility for Information Resources and Administrative Duties

To maintain accurate records

To be responsible for the management and maintenance of a database.

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

R & D: To undertake service-relevant research as indicated above and development activity agreed within the service.

Freedom to Act

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

In a supervised context, to work within clinical professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the governance of practice.

Any Other Specific Tasks Required

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

General Information

Equality & Diversity

Devon Partnership NHS Trust is committed to recruiting and supporting a diverse workforce and so we welcome applications from all sections of the community regardless of age, disability, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation, maternity/pregnancy, marriage/civil partnership or transgender status. The Trust expects all staff to behave in a way which recognises and respects this diversity in line with the appropriate standards.

Recovery

It is a requirement of all employees to have an understanding of the broad principles of the Recovery Approach and to incorporate them into every aspect of their work in support of the Trusts aim to provide services that support peoples recovery through being holistic and promoting social inclusion, self management, personal autonomy and independence.

Risk Management / Health and Safety

Employees must be aware of the responsibilities placed on them under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, ensure that agreed safety procedures are carried out and maintain a safe environment for employees, patients and visitors.

Records Management

The post holder has responsibility for the timely and accurate creation, maintenance and storage of records in accordance with Trust policy, including email documents and with regard to the Data Protection Act, The Freedom of Information Act and any other relevant statutory requirements.

Clinical Governance, Compliance and Performance

The post holder will be responsible for proving that the Care Quality Commission outcome areas have been met in all registered/related activities for which the post holder is responsible. Where outcomes are not met the post holder is expected to put in place/recommend action to improve. The post holder will proactively seek and engage the support of the governance teams in the Compliance and Corporate Development directorate to gather information as required. The post holder will build an understanding of and adhere to the CQC guidelines as well as the Trusts guidelines on the approach to maintaining CQC registration.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• QUALIFICATIONS & TRAINING
• BA or BSc in Psychology recognised by the British Psychological Society.
• IT Skills

Desirable

• Further training in Eating Disorders and/or Mental health issues
• Further training in an applied/clinical psychology or therapy interventions
• Knowledge/qualifications in quantitative and qualitative research methods
• Clinical placements and supervised practice

Experience

Essential

• Experience and or training in diversity awareness and social inequalities

Desirable

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of people who use services across a wide range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• Experience of working with people with eating disorders
• Experience in working with teenagers/young adults.
• Experience gained during supervised training of working in applied psychology
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision

Skills and Abilities

Essential

• Communication and Working Relationship Skills:
• Excellent verbal, nonverbal and written communication skills
• Analytical & Judgemental Skills:
• Ability to integrate complex data; make highly skilled evaluations and decisions.
• Planning & Organisational Skills:
• Organisation and time management skills
• Project management skills
• Physical Skills:
• Presentable
• Clear telephone voice
• Calm, methodical approach, friendly but concise
• Good communication skills when presenting / facilitating to varying groups of people
• Ability to work independently within defined occupational procedures and use initiative within a community based service
• 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.

Employer details

Employer name

Devon Partnership NHS Trust

Address

Wonford House

Dryden Road

Exeter

Devon

EX2 5AF

Employer's website

https://www.dpt.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)