Psychological Therapist Welwyn Garden City

We are currently seeking an experienced Psychological Therapist, at Band 7 to work via a Bank Contract, for our Adult Community Services, based in Welwyn. You will be joining our Temporary Staffing Team within HPFT - Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust.

The post-holder will provide specialist psychological assessment and treatment to clients with a diagnosis of personality disorder within the service, and will provide specialist support, guidance and consultation on clients' psychological care to non-psychological therapist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers within community mental health services, primary care and other agencies.

You will work closely with the local and quadrant-wide psychological therapy teams, as well as a range of other psychological therapy colleagues within the service setting and act as a resource on positive risk-taking and the management of people with personality disorders, for staff within the community hubs.

The post-holder will work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team's policies and procedures and will utilise research skills, on a regular basis, for audit, teaching, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

HPFT provides services for service users with mental health, learning disability and children's and adolescent mental health problems. All applicants need to hold a Professional Registration and can evidence this.

Main duties of the job:

• The post-holder will provide specialist psychological assessment and treatment including a range of evidence-based groups and individual psychological interventions.
• The post-holder will provide specialist support, guidance and consultation relevant to personality disorders in clients' psychological care to other multi-disciplinary professionals.
• The post-holder will work closely with both psychological therapies staff and other non-psychological therapy colleagues.
• The post-holder will work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team's policies and procedures.
• The post-holder will utilise research skills for audit, teaching, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

About us:

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (HPFT) is rated by the Care Quality Commission as an Outstanding provider of mental health and learning disability services. Feedback from our staff about working for the Trust is very positive and, in the NHS national staff survey, we regularly see a high percentage of staff saying their role makes a difference to our service users and that they would recommend the Trust as a place to work. Our people tell us they feel supported through a great development, wellbeing and work-life balance offer and a highly compassionate, values-driven culture. We are equally proud of our staff, who live our values of being welcoming, kind, positive, respectful and professional so that together we provide great care and great outcomes for our service users and carers.

Job responsibilities:

• Provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.
• Formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
• Be responsible for implementing psychological interventions from within your area of specialty for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining the psychological formulation according to the evolving clinical scenario.
• Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
• Exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.

Person Specification:

KNOWLEDGE, TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE

• Qualification and continuing registration in one of the core mental health professions e.g. psychiatric nursing, clinical or counselling psychology, social work or occupational therapy.
• Completion of DBT Intensive Training and commitment to achieve DBT Accreditation when this becomes available.

AREAS OF EXPERIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, adult mental health and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups including adults with personality disorders.
• Experience across the whole life span presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of multi-disciplinary team working and inter-agency collaboration.
• Experience of service quality monitoring e.g. clinical audit, evaluative research, etc.
• Experience of working in a community mental health setting.

PHYSICAL SKILLS

• Car Driver.
• IT Skills; including the use of Microsoft Office and Outlook, entering data onto electronic patient records.

PHYSICAL EFFORT

• Ability to travel and work flexibly across different sites in Hertfordshire.

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 to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications.

Employer name: Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

Address: Rosanne House, Parkway, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6HG