Clinical Psychologist / Psychological Therapist in Leigh

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Step 3+ therapy provision within Wigan Talking Therapies on a 9 month fixed term contract to cover maternity leave. They will be providing highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy for people with complex, co-morbid, chronic common mental health problems as well as ensuring the appropriate provision of high-quality, individual and group, clinical supervision to psychological therapists as appropriate.

Main duties of the job include:

• Providing highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy for people with complex, co-morbid, chronic common mental health problems.
• Ensuring the appropriate provision of high-quality, individual and group, clinical supervision to psychological therapists.
• Providing expert advice and consultation outside the service to members of the primary health care team and, as appropriate, to secondary care services.
• Undertaking appropriate audit, research, and service development activities pertinent to the evaluation and development of the service.
• Adhering to the service standards for clinical activity and working within the procedures, protocols and guidelines for the service.
• Working with people from different cultural backgrounds and ages, using interpreters when necessary, and committing to equal opportunities.

Working for our organisation:

Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) Foundation Trust employs over 6,400 members of staff, who deliver services from more than 160 locations. We provide inpatient and community-based mental health care for people living in Bolton, the city of Manchester, Salford, Trafford and the borough of Wigan, and a wide range of specialist mental health and substance misuse services across Greater Manchester, the north west of England and beyond.

Staff benefits include:

• Pay Enhancements – 30% additional for Evenings (8pm onwards) and Saturdays and 60% additional for Sundays and Bank holidays.
• 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays rising to 29 after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years.
• Excellent pension.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Salary sacrifice car scheme.
• Wellbeing programme.

Person specification:

Essential criteria include:

• Doctoral or Masters Degree or equivalent experience/qualification in clinical psychology or any other relevant psychological therapy.
• Further post-qualification specialist training research or study, conferring advanced theoretical and practical knowledge within a specialist field of psychological therapy.

Desirable criteria include:

• Accredited membership of an appropriate psychological therapy professional body.
• Additional further training and qualifications in a range of therapeutic models (CBT, IPT, CAT) and in the use of specific psychometric and/or neuro-psychological assessment tools.
• Completion of appropriate supervision training.

Essential experience includes:

• Proven post-qualification experience as a psychological therapist within the NHS.
• Experience working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and full range of settings including primary care, community, inpatients and acute care settings, and with expert knowledge in common mental health difficulties.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for psychological assessment and intervention and evaluation with a range of common, acute and complex mental health needs.
• Proven ability to supervise others within the domain of service area.

Desirable experience includes:

• Experience of representing psychological services in local policy forums.
• Development and delivery of group therapy for complex presentations.
• Undergraduate and post graduate research experience.
• Experience of audit and service evaluation within psychological therapy services.
• Experience in teaching and training and qualified psychological therapist and of non-psychology staff.
• Experience of the application of psychological therapy in diverse cultural and ethnic contexts.

Essential knowledge includes:

• Thorough understanding of phenomenology and theoretical models of complex co-morbid common mental health disorders.
• Understanding of the national guidance and policy directives in relation to the development and delivery of psychological therapies for common mental health disorders.

Desirable knowledge includes:

• Awareness of similarities and differences between schools of psychological therapy.

Essential skills and abilities include:

• Ability to formulate presenting problems using a range of evidence-based psychological models.
• Ability to formulate presenting problems from first principles drawing from appropriate knowledge base.
• Strategic planning, development and delivery of psychological services within and across organisations.

Desirable skills and abilities include:

• Training in more than one modality/intervention.

The Trust mandates all post holders who require a DBS for their role to subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration throughout your employment with GMMH.

Applicants are encouraged to apply for posts at Greater Manchester Mental Health who have direct experience of mental health, learning disability or drug and alcohol services either as a service user or a carer. The Trust is also committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults and requires all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

We are aspiring to ensure our workforce is representative of the diverse communities that we serve, and we are strongly committed to removing barriers to employment for candidates from under-represented groups, for example BAME, Disabled and LGBT+ communities.

If you would like to have an informal chat about the recruitment process for this role or would value some additional support, we’d love to hear from you.