Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist Full Time

Brookside is a specialist Tier 4 CAMHS adolescent service with award winning services. The Tier 4 services include an acute in-patient service and a pioneering Young-People’s Home Treatment Team. The young people admitted to the Tier 4 services usually have complex mental health difficulties and present with high risk behaviours (e.g. self-harming/suicidal behaviour) and /or acute episodes of depression, psychosis or other indicators of a complex mental health need.

The post requires a high level of multi-disciplinary working, and an intensive, integrative therapeutic approach towards assessment, formulation and individual, family and group interventions. The post holder will join an established psychology team including a lead psychologist (Care pathway lead for psychology Tier 4 CAMHS), a team of clinical psychologists, assistants and trainees. The post-holder will work closely with the multi-disciplinary team which comprises of nurses, health care assistants, consultant psychiatrists, speciality doctors, occupational and family therapists and a social worker.

Aim of the role: The post holder will be expected to support their team, department and organisation to achieve the Trust’s Values in their day to day work. These are:

• We are kind
• We are respectful
• We work together with our communities

The Post Holder Will Achieve This By

• Participating in the development and implementation of high standards of clinical care in CAMHS Tier 4 adolescent services ensuring the psychology service provided is needs led, compliant with national guidance and is experienced positively by service users.
• Offering support and consultation to the multidisciplinary ward team in their work and in the provision of psychologically informed formulation and interventions.
• Exercising clinical responsibility for undertaking psychological assessment, psychological treatment and discharge planning of clients in consultation with the multi-disciplinary team.
• To assist in the supervision, teaching and coordinating of assistant and trainee psychologists.
• Taking a senior role in the clinical development of the Tier 4 CAMHS services.
• Providing high quality, trauma-informed clinical care that is focussed on recovery and reintegration.

Main duties of the job

Clinical Skills

• Work with an allocated caseload of young people and their families/carers.
• To provide specialist comprehensive psychological assessments of young people based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex 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 patients, family members and others working with the client.
• To provide specialist comprehensive risk assessments of referred patients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment, prevention and management.
• To provide a specialist psychology service in the areas of assessment, individual, group and family/system treatment.
• To provide specialist psychology input to adolescents and their families in at least two different evidence-based therapeutic modalities.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and complex factors concerning developmental processes and historical events that have shaped the individual, family or group.
• To undertake joint therapeutic work with members of the multidisciplinary team as appropriate.
• To provide specialist teaching in psychological theories and methods to the multidisciplinary team of the Brookside CAMHS Tier 4 services.
• To participate in Brookside community and staff meetings.
• To participate in Brookside management meetings as appropriate.
• To contribute to the evaluation of the multi-disciplinary therapeutic service at Brookside.
• To contribute to the ongoing evaluation of the psychological input into the Brookside Young People’s Unit.
• To provide a specialist clinical psychology service for young person’s moving through CAMHS services to Adult Mental Health Services, as appropriate.
• To help prepare young people in CAMHS services for the transition to Adult services and to help Adult services prepare for their role in delivering continuity of care.
• To facilitate the development of psychological approaches within the services treatment pathways.
• To liaise with and where appropriate, provide consultation / supervision input to other NHS and partner agencies locally and nationally as relevant.

Leadership

• To actively participate in the management structures of the Brookside CAMHS Tier 4, representing psychology where appropriate and with the agreement of the lead psychologist for Brookside.
• To provide clinical supervision to colleagues, other MDT members, trainee psychologists and where relevant, other junior staff.
• To provide and co-ordinate placements and supervision for trainee clinical psychologists.
• To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staff’s psychological work, as appropriate.
• To undertake specialist teaching and training of Brookside colleagues as and when appropriate.
• To take an active part in the NELFT wide professional support network for child clinical psychology and where relevant with the wider inpatient and acute directorate colleagues.

Policy/Service Development

• To actively contribute to the development, implementation and evaluation of the service at Brookside through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
• In conjunction with the Brookside management team, to identify and propose potential changes to work practices and procedures.
• In conjunction with the Brookside team, to propose, organise and participate in research, quality improvement and audit activities.
• To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists as may be appointed, within the framework of the team’s policies and procedures.
• To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists and other members of staff.

Research and Development

• To provide teaching in psychological theory and methods to multi-disciplinary team members of Brookside Services.
• To use specialist research knowledge, to help design programmes to evaluate NELFT child and adolescent services.
• To keep abreast of new working practices and current research evidence, using training opportunities to increase knowledge and skills.
• To undertake project management, including quality improvement, audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to develop and improve adolescent services.
• To complete statistical information on the psychology service as required by the Trust.
• To share learning outcomes with colleagues in order to enhance performance and CPD within the team.

Administration/IT skills

• To attend meetings at the relevant psychology based and directorate based forums.
• To remain familiar with relevant professional strategy policies and guidelines with reference to adolescents.
• To conform to policies about confidentiality and patient access to information.
• To liaise with other NHS agencies as well as voluntary and non-NHS agencies with regard to professional, managerial and clinical issues.
• To liaise with staff from all relevant Tier 3 and 4 CAMHS services who may want to refer patients to Brookside.
• To conform to the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
• To undertake any other duties which may arise under the direction of the Strategic and Care Pathway Lead for Inpatient and Acute Psychology and/or the Service Managers for the Brookside CAMHS Tier 4 Services.
• To utilise the electronic patient record system and maintain contemporaneous patient records as per policy including care plans and risk assessments.

Freedom to Act

• To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of legislation, policies and issues relating to both the specific client group and mental health issues in general.
• In consultation with the operational and clinical supervisors, to identify own training needs and find ways to meet these.
• To comply with all Trust policies and procedures

Starting with NELFT

NELFT place a great deal of importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and will undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks which will include mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop-in sessions focusing on engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period. Internal applicants are exempt from the probationary period (unless you are an internal applicant currently part way through a probationary period or currently a bank member of staff).

High Cost Area Supplement Outer London (B&D, Redbridge, Havering and Waltham Forest, CEME)

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (with a minimum of £4,870 to a maximum of £6,137 p.a. pro rata for part time).

Working for Us

Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London and Essex. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award-winning equality and diversity initiatives, along with staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest significantly in your development because when you feel valued and supported, we can deliver the highest quality care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been recognised in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for five consecutive years, and hold a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Through our staff networks and training opportunities, we strive to foster a just and compassionate culture at NELFT.