This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic and dedicated Clinical Psychologist/ Practitioner Psychologist to join our friendly Inpatient Psychology Service at Clock View Hospital.
A strong commitment to a compassionate, inclusive, person-centred approach and to social justice and human rights is essential to our work in the Inpatient service, as we aim to empower the people we work with to support their recovery.
We welcome and will consider applications from applicants who are registered with the Health Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist and have Post-graduate doctoral level training in the field of applied psychology accredited by the BPS, or its approved equivalent.
Main duties of the job
We are looking for qualified psychological practitioners with the experience, skills and enthusiasm to provide quality services to people accessing Mersey Care NHS Trust.
Successful applicants would be working within teams to support people with a range of psychological issues. The applicant will provide specialist psychological assessment, therapy and interventions to service users and carers, making use of a range of models where appropriate. Successful applicants would also offer specialist advice, leadership and consultation to non-psychologist colleagues and support the development of psychological skills across the whole workforce through specialist training, supervision, mentorship and reflective practice. Psychological input is highly valued by staff within the service. You will work alongside the senior Clinical Psychologist to be involved in ongoing service development and in shaping service innovations.
We have excellent links with North West doctoral training programmes and offer placements to trainees from local universities on a regular basis and the post holder would be expected to clinically supervise and manage the workloads of assistant psychologists and trainee clinical psychologists within the service as required.
You will contribute towards the continuing professional development, training, research, advising and supporting the Multi-disciplinary team as appropriate.
About us
Inpatient work offers a varied role with lots of opportunities for development. CPD is central to the post. Dependent on your skill set we will provide a wide range of training to meet your individual and service needs. Over the last three years examples of funded training courses available for our staff include: CFT (individual and group), EMDR, ACT, DBT, MBT and CAT training. You will receive additional modality specialist supervision should this be required. We are keen to support career progression and will also support your training in leadership and management should you wish to pursue this. Our aim to support, develop and retain you so you stay with Mersey Care for many years to come.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Job responsibilities
The post holder will be responsible for undertaking psychological work with service users residing on Inpatient Wards at Clock View Hospital. Main duties include: assessment, formulation, intervention, evaluation, audits/ research, teaching and training, supervision of assistant psychologists and MDT staff, delivering Reflective Practice to ward teams. The applicant will work closely with a team of assistant psychologists to support the delivery of individual and group psychological interventions. This is an exciting time to join the service as we are in the process of introducing new models of care to the Inpatient wards with an emphasis on systemic psychological approaches, including, the Self Harm Pathway and Positive Behavioural Support for challenging behaviours, the post holder will support the system to deliver these clinical pathways. The post holder will report directly to the Consultant Clinical Psychologist.
This post is advertised as a band 8a; we would be willing to accept application from newly qualified Psychologists, if successful they would be appointed at band 7 Preceptorship with a programme of competencies they had to achieve to reach the level required for the 8a post.
We are also accepting applications from Practitioner Psychologists.
The successful candidate will demonstrate excellent organisation and communication skills and be motivated to ensure high standards of proficiency and professional practise.
The post holder will report directly to the Consultant Clinical Psychologist.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology, or its approved equivalent accredited by the BPS
Desirable
• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice
Knowledge and Experience
Essential
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation 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 teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
Desirable
• Experience of working in an Inpatient Setting
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team/experience of working alongside staff from other disciplines
• Experience of the application of psychological theories within different cultural contexts
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts. 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.)
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Personal experience of mental health problems
Values
• Continuous Improvement
• Accountability
• Respectfulness
• Enthusiasm
• Support
• High professional standards
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Strong customer service belief
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet
• Change oriented
Skills
• Expertise in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Well developed and effective communication skills, oral and written, to communicate 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
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
• Knowledge of IT systems including word processing, email and local electronic patient information systems
• 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 service governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour
• Ability to self-reflect, use clinical supervision appropriately and consider complex organisational and team dynamic