Principle Clinical Psycologist

ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental and health care, innovation and improvement. So it is a very exciting time for you to come and work for us. Our mission is to make a positive difference to people\’s lives by improving quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Job overview

Job Advertisement

Title: Principle Clinical Psychologist

Band: 8b or developmental from 8a to 8b

Team: Emotional Behavioural Teal 3

Permanent – 0.8 wte

We are looking for an enthusiastic and experienced Principal Clinical Psychologist with a keen interest in service development and delivery to join our thriving and innovative multi-disciplinary Emotional & Behavioural Team (EB3). We are also open for Band 8a\’s to apply as a development role into the Band 8b post. This is an opportunity to bring a psychological perspective in clinical thinking to the team and to shape and develop the service which offers a range of therapeutic interventions to young people aged 5-18 and their families. This is a leadership role that will also oversee clinical supervision and consultation within the team and participate in leadership meetings and decision making.

We are a team that prides itself on creative, innovative and evidenced based approaches to our work with service users and carers and value a supportive and reflective culture in the work environment. Our team is inclusive and we consciously think about varying contexts we work within (i.e. ethnic, neurodiversity, cultural and socio-economic factors). Our work is underpinned by strong values to treat each other, service users and agency partners with respect and care.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide guidance on evidence-based therapies that can help address the demand on service, and in particular the growing complex challenges that young people and their families face, and how we as a service can most effectively respond. They will lead on service audits, quality improvement projects and clinical outcomes, ensuring that the findings of the audits inform service development. The successful candidate will also have responsibilities that include direct clinical work and case management of complex and high-risk cases, line management and clinical supervision.

The post holder will work with the Clinical Team Lead to ensure operational services are effective and will provide frontline leadership to the staff within the Multidisciplinary Team. The successful post-holder will directly contribute to service development and to the positive working environment within the multi-disciplinary team. The post holder will lead by example to maintain high standards of care and practice and to empower the team to take on a greater range of clinical tasks to improve client care in the specialist CAMH service. The post holder will be a highly visible presence in clinical practice and be accessible to clients and their families.

Working for our organisation

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people\’s lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive – so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

For a more detailed information please see attached job description and person specification document

Person specification

Education/ Qualification/ Training

Essential criteria

• Postgraduate Training in Clinical Psychology leading to Practitioner Psychologist Registration with the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Post qualification training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Post qualification training in Eating Disorders; Complex Mental health presentations in adolescence and / or CBT with children and adolescents.

Desirable criteria

• Management or leadership training

Experience

Essential criteria

• Substantial post-qualification experience of working within an NHS CAMHS service as a clinical psychologist.
• Experience of liaison and joint work with other statutory, including Social Services and Education, and voluntary agencies, including crisis management.
• Experience of the application of psychology and delivering services in different cultural contexts
• Experience of teaching, training and professional and clinical supervision.
• Experience of assessing adolescents for psychotherapy including risk assessment and management. Crisis management and skills for promoting helpful reflection amongst the clinical team.
• Experience of providing Evidence based interventions to patients with complex problems.
• Experience of developing and implementing care pathways.
• Experience of using clinical outcome measures.
• Service development experience.

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings.
• Experience of representing the profession in policy and academic forums.
• Experience of leadership, operational, and/ or line management responsibilities.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

• Doctorate level knowledge of clinical psychology including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology, models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, and two or more distinct psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to the health and welfare of children and adolescents and mental health.
• Specialist knowledge – Complex Cases. Highly developed knowledge of severe child and adolescent mental health problems, including comprehensive multi- disciplinary assessment, systems of psychiatric classification and intervention.
• Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist psychological therapies for complex presentations in adolescence e.g., psychosis, OCD, eating disorders, severe depression, neuro-developmental disorders and their assessment, dual diagnosis.

Making Things Better

Quality Improvement is a key part of our work to improve our services and refine how we do things. We have a global reputation for our quality improvement work and we don\’t stand still! So we offer a fantastic opportunity for our staff to learn, lead and contribute towards improving our services.

We launched our Five Year Strategy in April 2018, which identified four main strategic outcomes to improve: population health outcomes, experience of care, staff experience and improve value. This complements the NHS Long Term Strategy and sets out our direction of travel.

Our Community

We provide a wide range of community health and mental health inpatient services to children, young people, adults of working age, and older adults in The City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Bedfordshire and Luton. We also provide psychological therapy services to the London Borough of Richmond, and provide Forensic services to the whole of North East London. We provide services in urban and rural settings, sometimes in our inpatient units, but mostly in the community close to where people live. Integrated care is key in making the best use of resources and providing effective care.

Aiming High

We were rated \’Outstanding\’ by the CQC in 2016, were proud to be rated \’Outstanding\’ again in 2018 and continue to be rate \’Outstanding\’ in 2021.. We were named in the HSJ\’s Top 10 best places to work in healthcare and were voted Provider Trust of the Year in 2018.

Staff and Service Users United

We strive to ensure that staff feel valued by the Trust and as they are truly pivotal in delivering better outcomes for our patients and service users. Our aspiration is to help to make ELFT the best place to work. This Trust is clinician-led and provides the highest possible level of clinical expertise throughout its services. We pride ourselves on our service user involvement. A service user will be on your assessment centre and interview panel if you are invited to meet us.

We especially welcome people with lived experience of health difficulties, with insight and understanding of different backgrounds, cultures and lifestyles in our population as we believe that this will equip staff to deliver a high standard of care to our service users and patients.

Diversity

ELFT Is committed to being a diverse organisation and our workforce is reflective of the population and communities we serve. We believe that having colleagues with a range of backgrounds and life experiences enriches and adds value to the outcomes we have set out to achieve. Having partnered and endorsed by organisations who are representative and experts in various areas of equality and diversity, we can ensure we are meeting the pre-set standards all the way from recruitment stage throughout the career journey of our employees by being accessible, having fair inclusive practices and a host of staff networks to support, nurture and celebrate our valued staff in the workplace.

Other reasons to apply

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that\’s job share, part time or another flexible pattern.

As part of the relocation scheme we presently have, the Trust could support you with offering up to £10,000 for removal and associated expenses. This is subject to change and terms and conditions apply.

What Next?

If you like the sound of ELFT, don\’t waste a moment. We sometimes close adverts early if there is a high response, so apply now!

As part of our recruitment process we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same..

If you do not hear from us within four weeks of the closing date, please consider that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. You must provide professional email addresses for all referees as we will contact them as soon as an offer has been made. Please note we do not request references prior to interviews. All applications made through NHS Jobs account will be processed by TRAC System. Please note that some emails may go to your spam/junk mailbox so make sure you check this regularly.

Find us online at www.elft.nhs.uk | Find us on Facebook | Follow us on @NHS_ELFT

Employer certification / accreditation badges

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Documents to download

• Principle Psychologist (PDF, 392.6KB)
• ELFT at a glance (PDF, 151.0KB)
• Staff Benefits (PDF, 7.1MB)
• ELFT Strategy (PDF, 153.5KB)
• Trust Demographic Information (PDF, 1.5MB)

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