Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Job overview

The Learning Disability Service in Leeds is seeking a dynamic and experienced Clinical Psychologist to join our team. This is a large service comprising four multi-disciplinary teams committed to improving the health, well-being and lives of adults with a learning disability, and actively involving and advocating for people in their journey through services.

This role would suit someone with an established track record of delivering services for people with a learning disability who is interested in a new challenge to innovate and develop psychological services across a range of clinical pathways. The role will involve working closely with the Consultant Clinical Psychologist to review and evaluate psychology provision, offering an exciting opportunity to work collaboratively with the leadership team, multi-disciplinary team colleagues and the psychology team to help shape the design and delivery of psychology services and strengthen the psychology core offer so it aligns with current service demands.

The postholder will primarily work across two teams: the Intensive Support Team (IST), designed to reduce the risk of placement breakdown and hospital admission, and one of our established Community Learning Disability teams (CLDT).

Main duties of the job

The Learning Disability Service has embedded and values trauma-informed and formulation-driven approaches to supporting adults with complex presentations and addressing systemic challenges, and this post-holder would be instrumental in ensuring the continual delivery of these psychologically informed ways of working.

We are committed to supporting the development and learning of our clinical psychologists and this role will afford a range of opportunities for enhancing professional knowledge and skills, development opportunities, clinical supervision of others, and quality improvement projects.

Within IST the postholder will hold a small clinical caseload and work intensively alongside colleagues to assess and formulate presenting difficulties informing multi-dimensional interventions to reduce risk and increase community participation. The postholder will act as a Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) specialist in the team, clinically supervising and supporting colleagues in the implementation of this model. The post holder will also be responsible for the development, delivery and evaluation of staff training. This role will involve close liaison and consultation with internal and external organisations, and requires excellent communication and  interpersonal skills.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Within the West and South Community Learning Disability team (CLDT) the postholder will undertake a range of clinical, psychological, neuropsychological and psychometric assessments to develop multifactorial clinical formulations that inform the delivery of evidence based and effective interventions, and clinically supervise junior, trainee and assistant psychologists in this work. The postholder will be confident in their understanding of learning disability, challenging behaviour and emotional dysregulation and in providing trauma-informed formulations, direct therapy, consultation, clinical supervision and training. The postholder will ensure the delivery of psychological interventions aligns to the established clinical pathways. There will be a requirement to attend weekly clinical team meetings and make autonomous clinical decisions about the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.

The role will include providing clinical leadership, support and supervision across all teams, and supporting organisational and systemic work in conjunction with the Consultant Psychologist, attending and deputising at service level and trust wide meetings as required.

We recruit people based on their values and qualifications (where required) and believe that their lived experience is an advantage, this means that together we are as diverse as the communities we care for. Simply put, when we employ caring people who act with integrity and have the right skills, we can give those with mental health challenges, learning disabilities and neurodiversity high-quality care and support to live fulfilling lives, and make our staff feel purposeful, happy and valued.

All our information is available in accessible formats. Please contact the Recruitment team [email protected]

Attached to this advert is our candidates guide to values-based recruitment and supporting guidance on how to make a successful application.

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please contact the Recruitment Team or see the attached candidate guide to reasonable adjustments.