Assistant Psychologist

Job overview

This is a great opportunity to work within our inpatient mental health psychology service and to work alongside psychologists, psychiatrists, junior doctors, OTs, nurses, social workers and physiotherapists, in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Our innovative Adult Mental Health acute wards comprise Admission, Treatment, Recovery and PICU ward as well as MOD patients. Our inpatient pathways are based on a model that admissions should be Necessary, Values Based and Appropriate and aim to work closely with the community services to facilitate discharge.

Working within this unique acute care system enables you to:

• Focus on developing specific skills and further develop expertise in assessment, treatment and supporting recovery.
• Improve and enhance collaborative working across the acute care system, using psychological thinking to improve the understanding of the person.
• Contribute to the reputation and image of our treatment system, resulting in an increased sense of pride in our place of work.

The post-holder will provide support to adults with a mental health diagnosis. The therapy will be provided as a part of the multi-disciplinary team approach to optimise individual functional outcomes.

The post-holder will deliver different forms of psychological interventions to patients recovering from an episode of mental health illness in either an individual or group setting. The post-holder will be based at The Cavell Centre, in Peterborough.

Main duties of the job

To support and enhance the professional psychological care of adults with a mental health diagnosis. Working across all sectors of care providing psychological assessment and psychological interventions under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, working independently according to a plan agreed with a qualified psychologist and within the overall framework of the Team’s policies and procedures.

To assist in clinically-related administration, conducting audits, collection of data and statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, teaching and project work.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.

• To provide a direct service using psychological intervention and assessment tools, under supervision of the Clinical Psychologist.
• To support the Clinical Psychologists in preparation of team formulation sessions, i.e. completing file reviews and dissemination of formulation.
• To facilitate group work, including psychoeducation, CBT. DBT and ACT informed sessions. This may include co-facilitating groups alongside other members of the MDT.
• To facilitate individual psychological work, under the supervision of the Clinical Psychologist.
• Where indicated to carry out Brief Psychological Interventions, including Anxiety Management, Behavioural Activation and Distress Tolerance.
• To support completion of Cognitive Screening assessments and in some circumstances more detailed neuro-psychological assessments.

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.