Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Job overview

These two roles will require the post holders to provide a specialist psychology service to clients with gender dysphoria on the Gender Affirmation Surgery pathway under CWFT and will be based at either New Victoria Hospital or Parkside Hospital. They will provide specialist psychological therapy to trans and non-binary service users around any aspect of their mental health or well-being connected to their surgical journey and recovery. This can include, but is not limited to, managing anxiety associated with healthcare settings, managing low mood or depression during the initial stages of recovery, processing bodily changes post-surgery, developing coping skills and resources, or dealing with surgical complications. The post holders will offer advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers or external agencies. They will work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures.

Main duties of the job

The post holders would be expected to provide short- to medium term evidence based psychological assessment and therapy to clients for a range of presenting difficulties including issues related to living with gender dysphoria who are undergoing gender affirmation surgery. We also anticipate that the post holders may contribute to the design and running of group psychoeducation interventions on mental wellbeing related to gender affirmation surgery under the supervision of the senior psychologist based at CCGS.

They will provide supervision to non-psychologist staff within the team, as well as offering advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to colleagues and to other, non-professional carers; working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures.

The post holder will need to work autonomously within professional practice guidelines.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health, well-being, and psychological aspects of their surgical journey and recovery, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.

• 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 evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account queer and trans affirmative models and considering the impact of wider systems on that person's experience of gender dysphoria and gender affirming surgery.

• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose difficulties are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management, and to support other members of the MDT in risk management.

• To contribute to multi-disciplinary team meetings; to communicate and reflect using a psychologically based framework.

• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

• To act as a named designated professional for clients within each service.

• The post holders are expected to adhere to all local and national safeguarding policies, identify and appropriately escalate concerns, and work in a trauma-informed, patient-centred manner with individuals who may be at risk or have experienced abuse, neglect, or discrimination.