Job summary

37.5 hours per week. This is an exciting opportunity to join a developing service to support people with psychosis who experience barriers to engagement with mental health services. You will work alongside colleagues across the community mental health pathway to use your psychological knowledge to support engagement and recovery. This will include working therapeutically within the existing Specialist Outreach Recovery Team as well as providing consultation to the Early Intervention in Psychosis team and core community mental health service. You will be supported to develop your knowledge and skills through mentoring with a consultant clinical psychologist and opportunities for training in relevant therapeutic approaches, such as CBTp. A competency framework is in place to support progression to 8a when competencies have been achieved; timeframes are likely to depend on previous experience. Should competencies not be achieved, you will be able to remain permanently in the post at Band 7.

Main duties of the job

You will be part of the wider Specialist Adult Mental Health Psychology team. We are a friendly and supportive team, with a strong culture of being trauma-informed and creative approaches to service delivery. There are regular opportunities for supervision, peer support and informal learning within the team.

This role may not be eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route; please refer to the Direct Gov website for more information with regards to eligibility.

Please note that [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] may close the job advertisement earlier than the specified deadline if a high number of applications are submitted. Therefore, we recommend you submit your application at the earliest opportunity.

All [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] staff are expected to be able and willing to work across a 7 day service.

About us

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] is an independent, award-winning social enterprise delivering integrated health and social care services across Plymouth, South Hams, and West Devon, with specialist services in parts of Devon and Cornwall. Our teams work in community hospitals, GP practices, sports centres, and health hubs.

As an organisation with a strong social conscience we are guided by our values, kindness, respect, inclusivity, ambition, responsibility, and collaboration. We focus on transforming services to ensure sustainability, while empowering staff and those we serve.

We involve the people we care for, along with their families and carers, in shaping the care they receive, striving to deliver the right care at the right time and place. Centering our work on individual needs helps people lead healthy, independent lives.

We prioritise employees' development, offering protected CPD time, training pathways, leadership programs, and funding for qualifications like the Care Certificate and Nurse Training Scholarships. Our induction and preceptorship programs ensure a smooth transition into our organisation.

[Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] values diversity and encourages applications from all sections of the community, including those with armed forces experience, lived experience of mental health, neuro-diverse conditions and learning disabilities. If you need assistance or reasonable adjustments during the application process, contact the Recruiting Manager listed in the job advert.

Job description

Job responsibilities

The role is to provide psychological input to specialist psychosis community mental health teams: Insight, which provides an early intervention to adults experiencing a first episode of psychosis and the Specialist Outreach and Recovery Team (SORT) which provides community rehabilitation for people affected by complex psychosis.

This includes delivering psychological interventions, supporting the delivery of psychologically informed care and contributing to the development and maintenance of quality across the service. This is likely to include the provision of individual and group interventions to service users and their family members across the pathway, supporting other team members in developing psychological formulations to inform care planning, providing consultation, advice and training to the multidisciplinary team, facilitating reflective practice, providing debrief and contributing to service development activities.

This post reports to the team manager for Insight but professionally sits within the wider SAMHP team, which provides psychological input to mental health in-patient and specialist psychosis teams and is led by a consultant clinical psychologist.

The post holder will:

• Respond to referrals for psychological intervention through triaging, prioritising and using systems to appropriately manage levels of demand, as agreed with the lead psychologist and service managers.
• Identify and deliver appropriate group interventions to service users and their families.
• Manage resources appropriately.
• Identify and provide opportunities for other members of the multi-disciplinary team to gain understanding of how psychological knowledge can support their work with service users, through using developing psychological formulations with team members, participating in multi-disciplinary meetings and decision making or other opportunities for providing consultancy and advice.
• In liaison with service managers, identify and deliver opportunities for staff learning and reflection, through reflective practice, debrief and training sessions.
• In liaison with service managers, identify opportunities for and conduct service development projects in collaboration with other members of the multidisciplinary team.
• Participate in and contribute to CPD and peer supervision within the wider SAMHP team.
• Engage in appropriate practice supervision.

MAIN DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES

Clinical:

• To provide a psychological therapy service to specialist community psychosis teams, including assessment, formulation and delivering psychological interventions to service users and their families in either individual or group formats, according to need.
• To engage service users with complex mental health difficulties and support them in considering how psychological approaches to their difficulties could support their recovery, working to overcome resistance.
• To monitor and evaluate psychological interventions using appropriate measures.
• To maintain accurate clinical records and record data as required by the organisation.
• To communicate both orally and through letters and reports, highly complex information concerning assessment, formulation and intervention plans to service users, professional colleagues and to family members, as appropriate.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to service users formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
• To contribute a psychosocial perspective within the multidisciplinary team including for those service users not directly on the psychological therapy caseload and attend individual patient reviews and risk management meetings where appropriate.
• To liaise effectively with professionals working in other service areas or organisations to support increased understanding of the psychological needs of service users and contribute to service users making successful transitions and that appropriate support is available to them.

Teaching, training and supervision:

• To provide regular reflective practice sessions to the multi-disciplinary teams and other ad-hoc opportunities for reflection on practice, including individual or group debriefing following incidents.
• To provide training to other members of the multidisciplinary team in the delivery of psychologically informed care and treatment.
• To contribute to CPD and peer supervision sessions within the wider SAMHP team.
• To receive regular clinical supervision from an appropriately qualified and experienced supervisor, in accordance with the BPS Division of Clinical Psychology and the HCPC guidelines and, where appropriate, from other senior professional colleagues.

Management, recruitment, policy and service development:

• To participate in multi-disciplinary meetings concerned with the delivery and development of clinical services and contribute a psychological perspective as appropriate.
• To contribute as required to the planning and development of the operational policies and service delivery in the acute mental health pathway through undertaking agreed project work.
• To advise service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological matters need addressing in line with service excellence and service objectives.
• To contribute to proposals for and implementation of policy and service development changes in relation to psychology and psychological therapies across the acute mental health pathway.
• To contribute to the development of user and carer involvement in the service.

Research, service evaluation & audit:

• To utilise theory, evidence based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
• To contribute to project management, including complex audit, research and service evaluation projects, with colleagues within the service, to help develop service provision.
• To provide research advice to other staff undertaking research, including doctoral trainee clinical psychologists and assistant psychologists undertaking research as appropriate.

Professional:

• To attend Specialist Adult Mental Health Psychology meetings, operational services and other relevant meetings regularly.
• To adhere to professional/accrediting body codes of conduct, policies and procedures (e.g. HCPC, BABCP, BPS).
• To be aware of, adhere to, and where appropriate, contribute to the formulation and review of Trust, Area and Service policies and procedures.
• To maintain and develop high standards of psychology/psychological therapy practice by engaging in continuing professional development and co-operative working/networking with therapy, counselling and clinical psychologist colleagues.
• To receive regular line management
• To participate in the Organisations annual performance review and personal development planning process with the appropriate individual(s).
• To keep up to date with legislation, national directives, policies and NICE guidelines in relation to the work.

IT responsibilities:

• To be able to communicate effectively using Information Technology.
• To contribute to the maintenance and development of office system and procedures within the service.
• To be fully competent in Information Technology (IT) including Systm1 to electronically search and gather relevant information related to psychological assessment and intervention.
• To be able to use a range of software packages including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as a minimum in order to be able to process and manage data and information effectively.
• To be responsible for maintaining appropriate service statistics and records of work within the requirement of [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] policies, including Systm1

COMMUNICATIONS AND RELATIONSHIPS

• Communicates with people using services and their families / carers, through the provision of psychological assessments and interventions, participation in clinical meetings and trough routine presence in the ward environment.
• Contributes to the delivery of general clinical services through collaboration with professional staff of other disciplines.
• Liaises and works in partnership with other health service providers in the relevant areas and works with statutory and voluntary agencies in the community where appropriate dependent on the needs of service users.
• Liaises with professionals outside [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] in relation to professional practice (including teaching and service development)

PHYSICAL DEMANDS OF THE JOB

This job requires sitting in a constrained position for extended periods of time (e.g. during clinical sessions and meetings). It also requires adequate keyboard skills.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctorate in clinical psychology (or its equivalent) as accredited by the BPS.
• Current HCPC registration required.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of providing evidence based psychological interventions to adults with a range of mental health problems.
• Experience of working in mental health services with a range of levels of clinical complexity and severity.
• Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams.
• Experience with routine outcome monitoring, audit and clinically related research.
• Evidence of engaging in continuing professional development.

Desirable

• Experience of working with adults with severe and complex mental health problems.
• Experience of working in specialist psychosis services.
• Supervision of other professions. Delivering teaching or training.
• Service innovation and development.

Knowledge

Essential

• Knowledge of evidenced based psychological therapies relevant to the clinical service
• Knowledge and understanding of common and complex mental health issues and presentations and the role of acute mental health services.
• Knowledge of child protection/safeguarding issues, understanding of the care programme approach and the Mental Health Act and other relevant legislation.
• Working knowledge of clinical governance, including relevant approaches and tools.

Specific skills

Essential

• Ability to work autonomously and as part of an MDT.
• High level of spoken and written communication and presentation skills.
• Ability to develop good therapeutic relationships with clients with complex mental health needs and presentations.
• Ability to communicate and liaise effectively with practitioners, secondary mental health services and other agencies.
• Ability to respond effectively with service users and carers who may be distressed angry, confrontational or violent.
• Ability to use clinical supervision and personal development positively and effectively.
• Ability to manage own caseload and time, to work under pressure and set priorities.
• Ability to maintain resilience while experiencing frequent exposure to highly distressing and emotional situations.
• Ability to provide effective support to other professionals in managing the emotional demands of their work.
• Ability to reflect on and critically appraise own performance.
• Computer literacy.
• Ability to frequently travel independently and in a timely manner between [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] sites and community locations including areas not served by public transport.

Desirable

• Skills in group work

Employer details

Employer name: [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal]

Address: Avon House, Mount Gould Hospital, Plymouth, PL4 7QD

Employer's website: [Employer hidden — sign up to reveal] (Opens in a new tab)

Additional information

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship: 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. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration: Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).