Psychological Therapist

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an enthusiastic and compassionate Psychological Therapist to work within our MHTR Teams in Buckinghamshire

The postholder will be covering High Wycombe and Aylesbury.

If you are seeking a new challenge, and have a keen interest in the criminal justice services, we encourage you to apply and join our supportive and welcoming team!

The Mental Health Treatment Requirement (MHTR) Team are part of MPFT’s Health and Justice Service. The MHTR team provide psychological assessments and interventions to people with mental health difficulties who have come into contact with criminal justice services and whose offences may attract a community or suspended sentence order.

The team aims to prevent short term custodial sentences and reduce reoffending by improving access to psychological interventions and addressing underlying mental health problems, thereby improving health and social outcomes for the individual and their family.

MPFT deliver services across England. We are experienced in working across a wide geographical area and there is no necessity to travel to headquarters, training and IT support is virtual.

Main duties of the job

In conjunction with the Clinical Lead take responsibility for the delivery of care for service users who experience a range of mental health problems requiring evidence based psychological interventions and sentenced to a Primary Care MHTR.  To deliver care to people identified as requiring psychological interventions in accordance with your level of competence.

To assess service users for suitability for a Primary Care MHTR and the evidence-based therapies in which you are qualified. To identify where a person’s problems appear too complex or severe to be appropriate for the Primary Care MHTR and refer to clinical supervisor/secondary mental health services as appropriate.

Making clinical decisions when working with people with comparatively less complex psychological needs, requiring psychological assessment and intervention, within the Primary Care MHTR service. You will provide these assessments, formulations and interventions with regular supervision from an Applied Psychologist.

With the support of the Clinical Lead to develop referral, assessment and treatment pathways for individuals from Black and Minority Ethnic communities identified as potentially suitable for a Primary Care MHTR.

This post will require advanced communication and interpersonal skills.  You will be required to provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive, and contentious information regarding assessment, diagnosis and treatment of service users with complex mental health presentations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For further information on the Job Description, main responsibilities and Person Specification to ensure you have the relevant skills for the post, please see the attached documents.

Undertake specific elements of a specialist psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of people referred to the service, working in partnership with the person, their families/carers/support networks and other services and professionals involved.

Liaise with referrers, GPs and other professionals concerned with the individual in order to develop and review care plans/treatments/interventions.

Maintain contact with service users during episodes of inpatient care, care with other teams/ services and or when transitional care is active, ensuring continuity of care and effective communication.

To assist in development of a responsive service: this may include out of hours, evenings and weekend working. To travel to service sites within the catchment area.

Manage, on a regular basis, complex cases, presenting high risk and requiring highly developed and advanced risk assessment, relapse management and crisis management skills.

To provide supervision to staff working with the client group, to support them in delivering psychologically informed interventions, where appropriate.

Maintain timely data collection and regular inputting of information through the use of data collection systems e.g. RiO and MHTR database.

Promote psychological thinking, reflection and trauma informed care within the team.

More details and full list of responsibilities are