Highly specialist clinical psychologist (2 posts 1.4 F/T equivalent)

Job overview

To provide specialist psychological assessments for adults living in BLMK. The post holder will provide highly specialist psychological autism assessments for a diverse population of people with a wide range of differential diagnostic characteristics. We have a strong neuroaffirmative lens to all  of the work we complete. As a multidisciplinary modelled service, the post holder will work collaboratively with expansive knowledge of different clinical disciplines. There will be opportunities to provide consultation work.

The post holder would be expected to work autonomously within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of Trust policies and procedures. In addition, the post holder would be supported to utilise research skills for audit and service development & research.

This is a particularly exciting time to join our team. We are driving our service proactively to match contemporary theoretical and evidence-based understanding of autism to guide our practice for autistic people. We are dedicated to including the autistic population to work with our clinicians to lead innovative and evolving change. We value the insight of everyone in our team and would include the post holder to contribute to service development.

To provide clinical supervision and psychological formulation skills to other members of the team.

Main duties of the job

To provide specialist psychological assessments of service users referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users, family members and others involved in the person’s care as part of the diagnostic pathway.

As a team we are supporting new staff to undertake autism assessment training using tools such as ADOS, ADI-R, and ACIA .

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

You will join a multidisciplinary team which consists of Nurses from learning disabilities, mental health and adult general nursing, A clinical lead consultant psychologist, clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists,  support workers, an occupational therapist a speech and language therapis and admin/ clerical staff. You will contribute to psychology provision through supervision, MDT meetings as well as undertaking assessments and formulation. There is significant oppportunity for specialist expertise development under the supervision of the clinical lead. We would enable opportunities to be involved or lead quality improvement and research. We invite all staff to proactively contribute to the aspiration of the service: to enable thriving, not just surviving. We are a reflective team and encourage all staff to demonstrate a reflexive understanding of internalised bias and cultural injustice to ensure that our service evolves to enable access for a heterogeneous population.

You will have some experience of working with people with trauma and other mental health issues, it is likely that even if you have never worked within an autism service, you will have worked with autistic people. We are seeking a creative, dedicated person who is interested in autism assessment, using neuroaffirming psychoeducation to facilitate autonomy for people receiving a diagnostic assessment.

To evaluate, and make decisions, about options of ongoing support 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.

Outcome Data to be collated for individuals to provide assurance that appropriate assessment and treatment has been provided.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment and discharge of people accessing the service.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service user’s and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

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 the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.