Senior Clinical Psychologist/Senior Psychotherapist Sheffield, England
Job description
Job Purpose
To provide a qualified specialist clinical psychology/psychotherapy service to service users of the Early Intervention Service. To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering highly specialised advice and consultation on service users’ psychological care to psychologist/therapist colleagues, non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers. In common with all Clinical Psychologists/Psychotherapists, to receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with good practice. To provide clinical supervision to less experienced psychologists/psychotherapists, assistant(s), trainee(s) or other professionals. The post-holder is responsible for the allocation of clinical work within their own team to less experienced psychologists/therapists, assistant(s), trainee(s) or other professionals. To take sole professional responsibility and exercise autonomous professional and clinical judgement within the overall framework of Trust, HCPC and BPS/BABCP policies/guidelines/standards. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team and service. To work within the EIS Leadership team
General requirements
To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post-holder’s professional and service manager(s). To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology/psychotherapy across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal, and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology/psychological therapy and related disciplines. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the HCPC, UKCP, BABCP, BPS and Trust policies and procedures.
We are passionate about providing the very best care to the people we support, and we're looking for amazing people who share this passion to join us.
What is it that makes our Trust such a special place to work? Well, it's all about the people. Our staff, service users, carers and families all come from such diverse backgrounds and all have expertise and stories to share.
It’s important that you feel supported in your role, that the people who you work with are as passionate as you are and that your health and wellbeing is taken care of
If you're interested in developing your career, you'll have access to a range of training and education opportunities, including apprenticeships, work experience and placements, as well as the chance to get involved in research.
We are all very proud of the difference we make to people's lives each and every day and if that's something that you'd like to be part of we'd love to have you with us.
Principal Duties
Clinical
To provide highly specialist psychological assessments of service users referred to the Early Intervention Service, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and psychometric tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users, family members and others involved in the person’s care.
To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a service user’s problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the person’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across a full range of care settings.
To work on a daily basis in face to face individual, family and/or in group therapy settings with service users presenting with highly complex and distressing psychological problems, including paranoia, voices, post-traumatic experiences, and social exclusion.
To be responsible for implementing a range of specialist psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of different provisional hypotheses.
To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals (both psychologists/psychotherapists and non-psychologists) contributing directly to service users’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans.
To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all users of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the service user group.
To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management. To coordinate, where appropriate, complex intervention plans, taking responsibility for initiating planning and reviews of plans, and including service users, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.
To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of service users under their care and to monitor progress during both the course of uni- and multi-disciplinary care.
Teaching, Training and Supervision
To receive regular clinical professional supervision in accordance with professional practice (HCPC, BPS/BABCP), and Trust guidelines.
To provide clinical supervision of other MDT staff’s psychological work, particularly the band 7 EI psychologist/CBT therapist staff, as appropriate.
To provide clinical supervision & training placements for trainee clinical psychologists, or supervision and training placements to trainee psychotherapists.
To provide clinical supervision to less experienced qualified clinical psychologists/psychotherapists, assistant(s), or other professionals.
To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology/psychotherapy, as appropriate
To provide highly specialised advice, consultation and training to staff (including both psychologists/CBT therapists and non-psychologists) working with the service user group across a range of agencies and settings. To undertake further training in psychological therapies as necessary for the post.
Management, Recruitment, Policy, Organisational and Service Development
To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of aspects of the team’s clinical practice through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
To contribute to the governance of psychological practice within their own team by developing and collecting relevant measures of outcome and audit and to provide consultation to other health and social care professionals to enable them to develop their own effective systems of governance.
To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
To be involved, as appropriate, in the short-listing and interviewing of assistant psychologists, band 7 psychologists & CBT therapists, etc.
To manage the work of assistant psychologists within the framework of the team/service’s policies and procedures.
To manage any waiting lists within the team and participate as a senior clinician in the allocation of cases taking into account skill mix and caseload.
To respond to referrals, making autonomous professional and clinical judgements based upon complex information, prioritising accordingly and contributing to multidisciplinary decision making. To implement the policies and propose changes to working practices/procedures concerning professional good practice for the provision of psychological services as applicable to users of the Early Intervention service, in order to ensure the highest standards of service to the service user group.
To propose policy or service changes which impact beyond own area of activity by participation in Trust working parties and other local development groups.
Research and Service Evaluation
To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research. To supervise D Clin Psy research projects or research undertaken by trainee CBT therapists.
To supervise the research activities of assistant psychologists.
To initiate, undertake and supervise project management, service evaluations and complex audits with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision. To disseminate research findings through publications and conference presentations.
