Practitioner Psychologist, Psychotherapist & Psychological Therapist

Job overview

This 8a Psychologist post will be the operational Lead for Lambeth for the  SLaM Psychology in Hostels (PIH) Service. This is an innovative, multi award-winning specialist homeless psychology service. For 14 years, PIH has led in the development of ‘Psychologically Informed Environments’ (PIEs), delivering ‘Trauma Informed Approaches’ and developing best practice for working with excluded and multiply disadvantaged populations across Lambeth and Westminster in partnership with the third sector.

The client group experience multiple disadvantage and have high levels of complex trauma and interpersonal difficulties coupled with substance misuse issues and risk-taking behaviour. To support them we deliver a ‘PIE’ approach. A PIE takes into consideration how the psychological and emotional needs of the clients are affected by the environments they inhabit and how services support them. This includes the approaches adopted by hostel and outreach staff; the training and support offered; the psychology-specific interventions delivered and the integration of psychological and trauma informed approaches in the design of services. The current PIE psychology model uses Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT) as well as other evidence-based treatments for working with complex needs populations (Incl. DBT, CBT, Narrative, Systemic).

We aim to work with the whole system around people experiencing homelessness, and are keen to continue to develop our community psychology ways of working.

Main duties of the job

• Adopt community psychology approaches to work with people with significant needs, including service exclusion, criminal offending, complex trauma, substance use, psychosis and brain injury; and with the teams that support them.

• Support people experiencing homelessness, drawing on a range of therapeutic approaches

• Work alongside partner organisations to deliver psychologically informed environments in hostel and supported accommodation settings

• Offer staff support including training, consultation and reflective practice

• To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create psychologically safe environments.

• To be responsible for the good clinical governance, quality and appropriateness of the work of PiH services.

• To supervise and line manage other qualified staff and oversee supervision and line management  in the team.

• To continue to support the PiH service to be a national leader in service design and delivery for working with homeless people and those experiencing multiple disadvantage through the continued development of PIE practice, the evidence-base and the national agenda for the development of homeless psychology services.

• Contribute to  winning bids, grants, tendering and commissioning, and support recommissioning, funding management and contract delivery.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

Clinical and Client Care

• To plan, organise and ensure the delivery of Psychology in Hostels (PIH) services in Lambeth - working creatively and flexibly, in line with Community Psychology principles to meet the needs of our third sector partners and the people they support.
• To provide and oversee the delivery of evidence based and culturally appropriate psychological interventions with carers or families of referred clients when required.

Teaching, Training, and Supervision

• To be responsible for planning, organising, and the delivery of teaching and training of pre- and post- qualification psychologists and specialist training to other professions in the PiH team.
• To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the PiH teams by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in psychology, psychological therapies, Homelessness, PIEs, Mentalization-Based Treat (MBT) and by implementing knowledge gained in practice.
• To provide clinical, professional and managerial supervision to junior members of the team for all aspects of their work.
• To coordinate and oversee the provision of a PIE training programme for third sector partners across Lambeth

Team and Service Clinical Functioning

• To work with other SLaM services and other agencies’ services (particularly the homeless sector) to plan and deliver joint services that are integrated around the needs of service users.
• To support recruitment of staff including the psychology and psychotherapy staff in the PiH teams.
• To support the wellbeing of the PiH teams through formal and informal systems used to identify and address issues.

Clinical and Client Care Policy and Service Development

• Support on winning bids, grants, tendering and commissioning, and support recommissioning, funding management and contract delivery.
• Support on developing service sustainability models, recommissioning and grant applications, including working with relevant SLaM Corporate, Legal and Contracts teams and directorate leadership as required
• To initiate, implement and ensure appropriate service developments to improve the quality and delivery of PiH services and in partnership organisations and services.
• To support the PiH service to be national leaders in service design and delivery for working with homeless people and those experiencing multiple disadvantage through the continued development of innovative Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE) practice.
• To take a lead role in ensuring that services to clients are of a high quality and are managed efficiently, according to the overall requirements of the Trust, NHS and government guidance and standards and local authority commissioners and direct provider contracts.

Leadership

• To provide leadership to psychologists, psychotherapists and other professionals in the PiH teams.
• Support and maintain a service culture and values in line with Trust values as well as the teams vision of addressing health inequalities and multiple disadvantage of people experiencing homelessness, and the value of cross-sector partnership working as ways of improving clinical practice and service delivery.

Research and Service Evaluation

• To provide expertise in the highly specialist research area which contributes to PiH and PIE more broadly.
• To develop and maintenance of a strong research culture that values the use of outcome measures and mix-method evaluations as a way of improving clinical practice..

Professional Responsibilities

• To receive regular clinical and professional supervision according to HCPC, BPS, or other relevant professional requirements and in-line with Trust guidelines.
• To ensure professional registration with the HCPC (for psychologists). For other therapists, to ensure –professional accreditation with their relevant registry body is maintained.
• To ensure that all psychology and psychotherapy staff for whom the post-holder has leadership or management responsibility, maintain professional standards and continuing professional development.