Assistant Psychologist Homelessness Service in Caerleon

This post is for an Assistant Psychologist to join an established psychology team in Adult Mental Health. The overall aim of this post is to increase access to psychological support for homeless people and the staff who work with them. The main aims of the post are to work alongside individuals who are homeless, who have often had difficult experiences in their interactions with the NHS and many have experienced significant trauma in their life. Many of our service users have multiple and complex needs including mental health difficulties, substance use dependence and/or cognitive impairments. We promote a trauma and attachment informed model of care and our service is open to both staff and service users within the homelessness context.

To enable access to services we work as an advocate for service users and staff with multiple agencies to ensure their needs are met, and we have developed good relationships to enable this. Engagement is a core element of the role, with service users, staff teams and multiple agencies, and we were shortlisted for an NHS award in 2025 due to our cross boundary working. This post is a fixed term/secondment for 8 months until 31st March 2027 to meet the needs of the service.

Main duties of the job:

• Organise and facilitate drop-ins for staff and service users who are experiencing homelessness in community environments where they reside/attend.
• Assessment of needs, including cognitive assessments, and appropriate sign-posting and advocacy to meet identified needs, under the supervision of a practitioner psychologist.
• Escalating concerns regarding risk and complex needs and working within your competencies.
• Individual and group interventions within the hostels and drop-ins.
• Supporting the ongoing implementation of psychologically informed environments in the hostels offering team formulation, reflective practice and critical incident debriefing.
• Involvement in the delivery of G-REP, an EMDR based approach to resilience building, to all staff working in the homeless sector.
• Interface with NHS services and other agencies, ensuring reasonable adjustments are made and advocating for individuals.
• Applying a trauma and attachment informed approach to all aspects of the role.
• Accessing supervision and appropriate training.
• Providing ongoing evaluation of our work to commissioners and other interested parties, which you would have a lead role in compiling and presenting data for stakeholders.
• Involvement in the activities of the broader ABUHB Adult Psychology Service.

About us:

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board is a multi-award-winning NHS organisation with a passion for caring. The Health Board provides an exceptional workplace where you can feel trusted and valued. Whatever your specialty or stage in your career, we have opportunities for everyone to start, grow and build your career. The health board provides integrated acute, primary and community care serving a population of 650,000 and employing over 16,000 staff. We offer a fantastic benefits package and extensive training and development opportunities with paid mandatory training, excellent in-house programmes, opportunities to complete recognised qualifications and professional career pathways including a range of management development programmes. We offer flexible working and promote a healthy work-life balance, provide occupational health support and an ambitious plan for a Wellbeing Centre of Excellence to support you at work. Our Clinical Futures strategy continues to enhance and promote care closer to home as well as high quality hospital care when needed. Join us on our journey to pioneer new ways of working and deliver a world-class healthcare service fit for the future.

Job responsibilities:

Main responsibilities involve working with the homelessness psychology team to support homeless individuals and staff working in the homeless sector within a trauma and attachment informed framework. This requires lone working but your work will be overseen and support offered by the principal clinical psychologist.

Person Specification:

Experience:

• Previous employment as an Assistant Psychologist or Research Assistant.
• Paid or voluntary work experience within an adult healthcare or homelessness setting.
• Ability to reflect on own lived experience of psychological distress or caring for someone with mental health needs.

Qualifications:

• Good honours degree in Psychology (First or Second Class).
• Eligibility for Graduate Membership of the BPS.
• British Psychological Society Level A Psychometric Testing Qualification.
• Further postgraduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check:

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.