Assistant Psychologist Littlemore, England
Job description
Exciting new role for an Assistant Psychologist in our recently established Specialist Community Forensic Team!
Do you want to work with forensic service users – to help reduce the length of their admissions and support them to successfully transition into the community? Are you creative and passionate about service development and trauma-informed care? Do you enjoy multiagency and multidisciplinary working?
Our SCFT covers a wide geographical area within the Thames Valley (Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire), so someone with the ability to drive between sites is essential. The main base office is likely to be in Oxford, but there will be scope for negotiation depending on where the postholder lives. All travel beyond the usual commute will be reimbursed through expenses.
We are looking for an Assistant Psychologist with some experience of the role to join our large, supportive team. The Specialist Community Forensic Team (SCFT) supports forensic service users to transition from secure care into the community.
Our service users have complex mental health difficulties, often including severe and enduring mental health problems and trauma histories, as well as risk and addictions. Transitions are often a time of anxiety for most of us, but particularly so for our service users who often have complex attachment needs and may have spent a significant length of time in secure care.
This newly developed service aims to provide intensive in-reach support to inpatients to help them to prepare for and navigate their discharges and safely settle into life in the community. We also seek to provide support to other services, such as housing providers and local Adult Mental Health Teams, so that our service users can increasingly access non-forensic provision and ultimately transition into primary or secondary care services.
The role will be varied and will involve a combination of direct client contact for assessments and interventions, including group and individual work, service evaluation and audit, as well as opportunities for a lot of joint, multidisciplinary, and multiagency working. It is a new role in the SCFT and so there is exciting scope for development, so someone with creativity, energy and enthusiasm would be great!
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust provides physical, mental health and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.
Our services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics and people’s homes, delivering care as close to home as possible
Our vision is that no matter who you are or where you are, you will tell us that you receive: “Outstanding care delivered by an outstanding team”
Our values are: “Caring, safe and excellent”
At Oxford Health we offer a wide range of benefits designed to support your career and wellbeing. These include:
- Excellent opportunities for career progression
- Access to tailored individual and Trust wide learning and development
- 27 days annual leave, plus bank holidays, rising to 33 days with continuous service
- NHS Discount across a wide range of shops, restaurants and retailers
- Competitive pension scheme
- Lease car scheme
- Cycle to work scheme
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Mental Health First Aiders
- Staff networking and support groups hosted by our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion team
The SCFT is large and consists of a growing number of staff from different disciplines. The SCFT model of care emphasises the importance of good multidisciplinary team working for the benefit of the service users, as well as feelings of satisfaction in the team.
What we need from you!
- A keen interest in new and upcoming technologies within Healthcare
- Be self-motivated and able to work autonomously as well as showing initiative and promoting new ideas on how to improve the service
- Be compassionate, caring and creative with excellent communication skills
- New starters have a 6 month probationary period. This, together with the induction process aims to create a positive supportive working environment allowing new employees to learn key elements of their role over a reasonable timescale.
- Candidates not currently employed by the Trust who attend an interview for non-qualified Band 1-5 posts are required to undertake numeracy and literacy assessments.
- Appointment to this post is subject to the trust receiving satisfactory references covering 3 years of employment or study. Please ask your referees to respond promptly to reference requests.
- Employees are expected to undertake mandatory and statutory training related to their role.
- We positively encourage applications from all areas of the community, regardless of gender, race, faith, disability, age or sexual orientation and we encourage applications from users of mental health services. This is part of our commitment to equality and reflecting the diversity of our population.
- Oxford Health is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, we expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
