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Job summary

Main area
mental health
Grade
Band 8a
Contract
Permanent
Hours
Full time - 37.5 hours per week
Job ref
363-SS5901199-A
Employer
East London NHS Foundation Trust
Employer type
NHS
Site
SS Coborn MDT
Town
LONDON
Salary
£56,388 - £62,785 per annum
Salary period
Yearly
Closing
31/07/2024 23:59

Employer heading

East London NHS Foundation Trust logo

Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Band 8a

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job overview

There is an opportunity for you to join our team at the Coborn Centre in East London. The Coborn Centre is located in well-resourced, purpose-built premises at Newham University Hospital. We currently work with 12–18-year-old young people and their families across the East London boroughs of Newham, Hackney & Tower Hamlets as well as Luton and Bedfordshire. The Centre which opened in 2006 comprises of 12 acute beds, 16 intensive care beds and up to 9-day patient places. The service has led the way in the design of adolescent mental health facilities nationally. We have been awarded an excellent by the QNIC accreditation process.

Young people present with eating disorders, psychosis, OCD, and emerging and emotional regulation difficulties.  The young people are in varying stages of recovery and can be dynamic and resourceful. We actively encourage them to help us enhance their experience of care.  We have an eclectic and energetic staff group and are seeking a candidate who has an interest in developing our current service and delivering our clinical care in new ways.  We pride ourselves in being a learning centre and believe in the development of our staff team through fortnightly academic sessions, regular training, reflective practice and complex case discussions.  This supports our strong team ethos on cross-discipline learning, evidence based practice and being reflexive practitioners.

 

Main duties of the job

The Clinical Psychology Service provides neuropsychological assessments as well as formulation driven, therapeutic assessments in order to facilitate an understanding of the young person’s strengths and needs. From the assessment, time limited interventions are offered both directly and through consultation with members of the wider multi-disciplinary team, i.e. medical, nursing, family therapy, occupational therapy, art therapies, social work and education. A range of therapeutic orientations is represented in the wider team including psychodynamic, systemic and cognitive behavioural perspectives. As a team, we are currently developing our skills in third-wave CBT areas of Mindfulness and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.  The wider therapy team is also currently developing the family therapy clinic over the next 6 months to broaden opportunities for our young people and families, as well as developing the team's systemic thinking.  Psychological input begins at admission and is focused on enabling young people to return to their community as soon as possible.

Working for our organisation

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will join the psychology team which consists of one Senior Clinical Psychologist, and two Specialist Clinical Psychologists. You will continue to develop the psychology provision through providing supervision to the wider MDT as well as hold a clinical case load. There will be considerable opportunities for developing your clinical leadership skills, sharing your clinical expertise and developing your capacity to enjoy multi-disciplinary team working. We would value your input to our quality improvement programme, and the development of psychological skills within the wider team. We are committed to staff development and reflective practice, with considerable resources in the Team and wider trust to support this.

You will have some experience of working with adolescents presenting with complex mental health presentations. We are seeking a candidate who is interested in neuropsychological assessment, multidisciplinary team working and targeted psychological interventions, especially third-wave CBT. We welcome informal enquiries and would enjoy showing you around The Coborn and talking to you about our work.

For further information on the above post please contact Dr Laura Bird, Lead Clinical Psychologist, Coborn Adolescent Unit on 0207 540 6789; [email protected] or Richard Vivian, Service Lead on the same telephone number or via [email protected]

Person specification

Training Qualification

Essential criteria
  • Three year Postgraduate Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, covering all care groups. Training in at least two therapeutic approaches and basic neuropsychological training.
Desirable criteria
  • Relevant specialist training or demonstrable experience in CBT, Child Neuropsychology or Systemic Work.
  • Clinical supervision training for Doctoral trainees.

Experience

Essential criteria
  • At least one year post-qualification experience as a Clinical Psychologist which includes relevant experience in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.
  • Experience of providing a direct clinical service with children, adolescents and their families with severe and complex mental health difficulties including specialist assessment, psychological formulation of problems and intervention.
  • Experience of completing neuropsychological assessments with adolescents with severe and complex mental health needs. Able to use a range of assessments such as WISC, Connors, ABAS and ADOS.
  • Experience of using a range of outcome measures within a CAMHS context that may aid assessment and formulation information for a young person.
  • Experience of developing and delivering specialist training programmes and/or supervision of other staff groups.
  • Experience of participating in audit, evaluation and quality improvement.
  • Experience of contributing to policy and service development.
  • Additional relevant clinical knowledge and skills acquired through formal training, long or short courses, formal supervision (individual and/or group), structured self study or experience (or a combination of these) to an appropriate level demonstrated by certification, documented supervision logs, management appraisal documentation and/or assessment at interview. This will include supervision training.
  • Experience of clinically supervising the work of colleagues (Assistants and/or trainee psychologists, MDT colleagues) and thereby managing a Clinical Caseload of direct and indirect work.
  • Experience in applying Leadership skills to drive forward individual clinical care plans and service projects (for example quality initiatives, service development plans)
Desirable criteria
  • Work in a multi-cultural setting, including working with interpreters.
  • Some knowledge of and experience in offering DBT with young people and/or their families.
  • Experience in clinically supervising junior psychologists.
  • Experience of delivering psychological group programs to young people in tier 4 settings.

Knowledge & Skills

Essential criteria
  • Able to supervise trainee and assistant psychologists and members of other staff groups.
  • Communication & Relationship skills: Able to provide & receive highly complex, sensitive or contentious information in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere, in a range of relationships and settings. Able to use highly specialist skills of empathy to overcome barriers to understanding and acceptance.
  • Analytical & judgemental skills: Able to draw upon a broad theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of highly complex facts or situations to arrive at appropriate formulations. Able to compare and select from a range of treatment options, based on formulation.
  • Planning and organisational skills: Able to plan, organise and prioritise own workload.
  • Physical skills: Basic keyboard skills.
  • Able to record and report on as required clinical information. Competent in use of basic IT packages – word processing, e-mail and internet.
  • Research & Guidance: Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis. Up to date knowledge of psychological research and national guidance relevant to the client groups. Knowledge of legislation and its implications for clinical practice with the client groups.
  • Cultural awareness: Aware of the potential impact of discrimination & disadvantage on mental health.
  • Flexibility: Able to be flexible and adapt approach according to need. Capacity to work effectively as a member of a multi-disciplinary team.
Desirable criteria
  • Physical skills: Driving.
  • Information resources: Competent use of other IT packages e.g. PowerPoint, Excel and Access.
  • Cultural competence: Able to provide a cultural competent service.
  • Flexibility: Able to innovate on the basis of theoretical knowledge.

personal

Essential criteria
  • Able to contain and work with organisational stress and able to hold the stress of others.
  • Able to apply reflective skills during exposure to distressing and highly emotional situations, in order to contain and support the wider team whilst agreeing immediate and longer-term care plans.
  • Physical effort: Able to sit in constrained positions for a substantial proportion of working time. Mental effort: Able to concentrate intensely for a substantial proportion of working time, during client contact, teaching/supervision sessions, team meetings, preparing written work etc. Emotional effort: Able to manage effectively frequent exposure to highly distressing/highly emotional circumstances and exposure to traumatic circumstances. Values: Respectful approach to service users, families, carers, colleagues and other professionals. Willing to negotiate and can handle confrontation effectively and professionally.

other

Essential criteria
  • Able to work to professional guidelines. Must be capable of accountability for own work, of autonomous clinical practice, of being guided by precedent and of working towards defined results.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Capital Nurse, LondonCommitted to being an Inclusive EmployerApprenticeships logoNo smoking policyPositive about disabled peopleAge positiveHSJ Best places to workArmed Forces Covenant (Silver Award)Mindful employer.  Being positive about mental health.Disability confident employerCare quality commission - OutstandingStonewall equality policy. Equality and justice for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and trans people.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

Apply online now

Further details / informal visits contact

Name
Laura Bird
Job title
.
Email address
[email protected]
Telephone number
02075406789
Additional information

For further information on the service can be found at:  https://www.elft.nhs.uk/camhs/where-we-work/coborn-centre-adolescent-mental-health

Laura Bird, Lead clinical psychologist, on telephone: 02075406789 Email: [email protected]

Richard Vivian, Service lead, on telephone:  02075406789 Email: [email protected] 

or 

Pam Dudman, Lead family therapist, on telephone: 02075406789 Email: [email protected]

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