Band 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Job summary

We are looking to recruit an accredited Clinical or Counselling Psychologist to join our team on a substantive contract, delivering high quality mental health care and treatment to young people in South Bristol.

We are a service working with children and young people with complex mental health needs. We use the CAPA model of assessment and treatment, which would involve working with a variety of clinical presentations and needs, including: suicidal thoughts, low mood, anxiety, OCD and emerging psychosis, often alongside neurodiversity. We also have a significant amount of referrals for young people with disordered eating and diagnosed Eating Disorders, and there are opportunities to work within this clinic if this is something you are interested in.

There is scope to make this role your own, thinking with the Team Leadership Group about the rich skills and experience you would be bringing with you, and leading change in our diverse and dynamic service.

South Bristol is an area of significant disparities in health, wealth and access. We are committed to working in a manner which is inclusive and anti-oppressive, and invite applications from staff who share these values.

Main duties of the job

With the role, you would use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to improving the mental health of young people working with South Bristol CAMHS.

Using your professional skills and experience, you would be providing highly specialist clinical psychology assessment/treatment and consultation service to children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties and their families who are referred to CAMHS.

Depending on your skills and areas of interest, you would be working with young people with a range of clinical presentations, including: low mood, anxiety, OCD, deliberate self-harm, psychosis, trauma, concurrent neurodevelopmental disorders including ASC and ADHD, and/or Eating Disorders.

About us

We are the lead provider of healthcare for people with serious mental illness, learning disabilities and autism across Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES), Swindon and Wiltshire, and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

We aim to provide High Quality, Compassionate Care everywhere, every day. This means our services will be safe, clinically effective and provide a positive all round experience for our patients, families and carers. And we believe passionately in treating everyone with kindness, respect and empathy.

Key to this is providing a supportive and safe environment for our 4,000 staff where we all feel welcome and able to do the best we can for those we support. Our staff and teams work incredibly hard delivering services across more than 90 locations, covering 2,200miles, to more than 1.8million people.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Job responsibilities

To provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients and carers as appropriate to the service.

To provide highly specialist advice and consultation on clients formulation and psychological management to other non-psychologist colleagues.

To use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to the more effective management of patients by the various teams in the area and where appropriate outside of the area.

To clinically supervise/line manage trainee psychologists, assistant psychologists, CAPs and less experienced psychology staff, and other professionals.

To contribute to audit, research, policy and service development within the areas served by the Psychological Therapies Service.

To develop and deliver training in psychological therapies for multidisciplinary staff.

To provide a highly specialist psychology assessment/treatment and consultation service to children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties and their families who are referred to CAMHS. To provide clinical skills in a particular area of expertise such as neurodevelopmental disorders including ASC and ADHD, CBT, Trauma or Eating Disorders.

To provide consultation and advice in area of specialism to colleagues in the team and other agencies.

To support the CAMHS team with service evaluation and audit to include supporting the service in becoming more accessible and inclusive to the diverse local population served by this CAMHS team.

To provide training as needed to other members of the multidisciplinary team on psychological assessment, formulation and treatment for young people in CAMHS.

Please see Job Description for full details

Person specification

Education and Qualification

Essential

• Doctoral Clinical or Counselling Psychology qualification or equivalent. Eligible for Chartered Psychologist status. HPC Registered.
• Post qualification and further specialist training in specified specialist intervention Additional training in assessment and therapeutic approaches in a specialist area relevant to CAMHS

Desirable

• Supervision Training

Experience and Knowledge

Essential

• Care Co-ordination or equivalent role.
• Training others in MH services topics.
• Experience of working alongside multidisciplinary colleagues
• Evidence based therapeutic interventions with client group.
• Psychological assessment skills and knowledge
• Advanced theoretical and practical knowledge in the specialism. Ability to use this knowledge to think systemically/ organizationally
• Experience of risk assessment and management
• Knowledge of relevant Legislation eg MH Act.
• Experience of providing training to colleagues and other agencies
• Experience of delivering therapies to young people and families in CAMHS.
• Experience of using psychometric assessments with this client group
• Experience of assessing and managing young people who are suicidal and young people who present a risk to self and others.

Skills and Abilities

Essential

• Ability to work effectively and flexibly as an integral member of a team.
• Good communication and liaison skills
• Empathy/engagement skills with the client group
• Ability to cope with workload pressure/ prioritise workload
• Ability to work independently.