Senior Cognitive Behaviour Therapist

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board. South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond. We are committed to providing high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for the care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good'.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone's potential as change makers. The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values and our promise to be caring, kind, polite, prompt, honest, listen and do what I say I'm going to do is at the heart of everything we do. When you join us, you'll be part of something special. As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

We have an exciting opportunity for a full-time CBT Therapist / Counselling / Clinical Psychologist to join our expanding and friendly team as Senior CBT therapist. This is a 9 months maternity cover. The successful applicant will be proficient in offering supervision to qualified CBT Therapists, acting as line manager to a team of clinicians, and have specialist experience of working with common mental health problems within primary care and within an IAPT service in particular. The applicant will be required to significantly contribute to service development and project management and provide duty cover. You can expect a friendly, creative, welcoming and social team. We take pride in involving our staff, drawing upon their skills and strengths and have a Staff Health and Wellbeing Champion. We are looking for enthusiastic and passionate team players, committed to working for our Croydon communities. The postholder will be based at our team bases in Central Croydon and/or at the Bethlem Hospital site and some working from home and is required to work at least one late shift from 11:30 to 19:30.

Main duties of the job

• To deliver NICE recommended, formulation driven psychological interventions for depression and anxiety disorders, adapting interventions for the specific needs and clinical setting.
• Assess and integrate issues surrounding social support, voluntary work and employment into therapy.
• Select and deliver highly specialist evidence-based psychological treatments, monitoring outcome and modifying and adapting interventions, drawing on a range of theoretical models.
• Collect and enter clinical outcome data on a sessional basis; select and interpret outcome measures to inform treatment planning.
• Provide professional managerial and clinical supervision to HI CBT therapists, Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners, trainees, assistant psychologists and other junior staff members for all aspects of their work. This must include live supervision of therapists' work.
• Manage/oversee the wellbeing and management of a team of staff.
• Provide service level risk management, developing and recording risk management plans.
• Identify aspects of the service which could be improved and initiate and implement service development projects.
• Improve existing systems and procedures to help contribute to an effectively and efficiently run service.

Working for our organisation Benefits

We are committed to ensuring our staff get the most out of their benefits package and understand the importance of a healthy work-life balance. There is an extensive range of excellent benefits for you and your family. We want you to feel like you are part of a close-knit team at SLaM. It's important to us that you are valued and appreciated and that is why we have a comprehensive benefits package on offer. Some of our benefits are highlighted here:

• Generous pay, pensions and leave.
• Work-life balance, flexible working and support a range of flexible options, such as part-time working and job sharing.
• Career development opportunities through mentoring, coaching, positive people management, collective leadership and other talent programmes.
• Car lease benefits from competitive deals to lease cars.
• Accommodation benefits from keyworker housing available on selected sites.
• NHS discounts with discounts up to 10% from a variety of well-known retail brands through the Health Service Discounts website.
• Other benefits include counselling services, wellbeing events, long service awards, cycle to work scheme, season ticket loan, childcare vouchers, and staff restaurants.

We look forward to receiving your application.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Job Purpose: The primary purpose of this role is to contribute to the continued development and provision of a very high-quality therapy service to meet the needs of the Croydon Service User, in line with the service specifications determined by the commissioners. Senior therapists are experienced psychological therapists with extensive experience working within an IAPT service, who make up the management team and work closely with the service lead, playing a key role in supporting, inspiring and guiding the clinical work of their teams, with a focus on continuing service improvement. They will lead a team and usually also take a lead role within the service holding responsibility for aspects.

• Support the service leads by sharing responsibility for the day-to-day running of the service.
• Work collaboratively with the service leads to implement service developments/new initiatives.
• Support the clinical lead in maintaining a strong, committed and motivated team.
• Work autonomously as a Senior Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service's policies and procedures.
• Develop and model IAPT protocols and ways of working.
• Provide high-quality specialist CBT supervision.
• Support supervisees in meeting performance targets as defined by the service, and to meet personal performance targets set in agreement with the service lead.
• Ensure high-quality training placements for IAPT trainees (HI, PWP or Assistant Psychologist).
• Deliver highly specialist medium-term cognitive behavioural psychotherapy service to patients referred to the service.
• Utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development.
• Continue to undertake advanced and highly specialist continuing professional development in cognitive behavioural psychotherapy.

Person specification

Education And Qualifications

• Essential criteria: Doctoral level qualification in clinical or counselling psychology (and eligibility for HCPC registration) and having completed an IAPT HI CBT course, OR, High intensity (HI) therapist, having completed an IAPT CBT course BABCP practitioner full accreditation or provisional accreditation.
• Desirable criteria: Training in a different therapy modality offered in IAPT (e.g. IPT, DIT, Couples, EMDR Groups).

Experience

• Essential criteria: Specialist experience of using CBT to treat depression and a range of anxiety disorders in adults in a brief time-limited format, and of using structured assessment protocols. Specialist experience of using CBT in the context of complexity and comorbidity, drawing on specialist knowledge and skills in treating depression and anxiety in this context. Experience of collecting and recording generic and disorder-specific outcome measures to monitor patient progress. Recent experience of working for at least two years within an IAPT service. Significant experience of contributing to service development and improvements.
• Desirable criteria: Supervision training attended. Experience of working across cultures and with diverse communities and 'hard to reach' groups. Experience of co-working and training other staff. Experience of service development.

Knowledge

• Essential criteria: Specialist knowledge of depression and specific anxiety disorders and CBT as applied to depression and specific anxiety disorders. Awareness of diversity issues and factors affecting access to mental health care. Familiarity with IAPTUS.

Skills and Abilities

• Essential criteria: Ability to meet agreed service targets. Ability to think creatively and constructively about service improvement. Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to effective team functioning. Skills and ability to act as an advocate for the service, to engage and foster good professional relationships. Well-developed IT skills including word processing and Excel.

The Trust is committed to providing services which embrace diversity and promote equality of opportunity. We are a Disability Confident Employer, we welcome applicants from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics. We provide reasonable adjustments for candidates with a disability and are committed to treating people fairly with compassion, respect and dignity and in promoting equality and human rights.

Please note: All applications for this post will need to be made online. Read and understand the Job Description and Personal Specification attached to the role. Your Statement in Support should reflect the requirements specified as your application will be judged against these criteria. The closing date listed is a guide only and the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received. We advise that you submit your application as early as possible. Once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3rd party e-recruitment system. All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. Should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not been successful. Priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees. Should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process. We are a smoke-free Trust. SLaM is a Stonewall Diversity Champion, Stonewall is the largest Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans (LGBT) rights charity in Europe.