Practitioner Psychologist (Clinical or Counselling)

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Clinical Psychologist to join this well established CAMHS Community team in East Hertfordshire, providing mental health interventions to children and young people and their families with moderate to severe mental health difficulties.  CAMHS East is a supportive multi-disciplinary team with opportunities for learning and development and progression.

We are an innovative and dynamic service and our most recent CQC report (May 2019) rated us as ’Outstanding’. Specialist work by Child and Adolescent Psychotherapists and other Psychological Therapists is valued by the Trust. Recent developments include transformation of our inpatient services with New Care Models, development of a DBT team, we are a Trailblazer site for the Mental Health Support Teams in schools and we are keen to promote quality improvements and innovative ideas, which improves care and the Service User’s experience.

In addition to the four quadrant clinic teams, our service includes a Specialist Eating Disorder Team, Specialist CAMHS Crisis Team, Targeted Team for looked after children, an adolescent inpatient unit (Forest House), and Home Treatment and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy teams.

We are a multi-disciplinary team made up of a range of professionals including child psychiatrists, clinical and counselling psychologists, specialised social workers, child and adolescent psychotherapists, systemic family therapists and specialist nurses.

Main duties of the job

• Ensure the systematic provision of a specialist clinical / counselling psychology service, across all sectors of care, providing both core work and specialist work (as defined by CAPA) including contributing to provision of a specific model of evidence-based therapeutic intervention across the CAMHS clinics.
• Provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues, professionals from other agencies and to other non-professional carers.
• Provide clinical/professional supervision to pre-qualified psychologists within the quadrant MDT and propose and implement policy and service development, undertake research, service evaluation and audit for own team/service and to contribute to the training of clinical/counselling psychologists and others

• A coaching network where trained coaches throughout the Trust are matched with staff of all disciplines to provide a powerful development opportunity
• Leading company discounts and childcare vouchers
• Salary sacrifice schemes enabling staff to drive a new car or bike - saving on tax and insurance included
• Wellbeing activities - from mindfulness to yoga, pilates and our signature craft club join our monthly programme of regular and special events to support your wellbeing
• Gym discounts, including Nuffield Health and David Lloyd.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical Responsibility

• To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the quadrant MDT, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s complex mental health problems, 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 including CBT for individuals, carers, families and groups, employed individually and in synthesis, co-working with other team members/disciplines as appropriate, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses
• To make skilled evaluations and 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. This evidence-based approach includes monitoring outcomes, modifying and adapting interventions drawn from a range of theoretical models
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility within HCPC guidelines for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and interventions, communicating with referrers and others involved with the care on a regular basis
• To provide specialist psychological advice guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan, facilitating the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the teams to the client
• 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 provide specialist expertise and psychological support to clients, their carers and staff working with the clients
• 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
• To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, ensuring provision of a care package appropriate for the client’s needs, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of the client’s care, including the child/adolescent, their family/carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry and recording
• To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision