Job summary
Clinical / Counselling Psychologist: Children who are Looked After (CLA) Psychology Service Leaving Care Team (Development Role). This is an exciting new role to lead on the psychological care offered to young people (age 16-25) supported by the Leaving Care Team. You will work closely with the young persons (YP) network to support a psychologically informed understanding of their emotional and mental health needs by providing consultation and trauma-informed formulation to professionals and carers and working directly with YP where clinically indicated. You will be part of the CLA Psychology Service, a service provided to Herefordshires care experienced YP; supporting professionals, carers and children. You will also be part of a team of psychologists in Herefordshire CAMHS working with children with complex difficulties. You would be expected to have a strong visible presence in the Leaving Care Team, working closely with Personal Advisors and Social Workers in supporting YP who are care experienced and provide a link role between CAMHS, AMH and Social Care. This post has been created to increase the therapeutic offer to YP leaving care. Experience of offering trauma informed and attachment-based interventions with an understanding of the challenges this client group faces is essential for this role. Minimum hours required are 22.5. There may be opportunities to increase to 37.5 in the wider service. Predominately based at the Union Street office.

Main duties of the job
In the exciting new post, you would be expected to offer:

• Highly specialist assessment for children in collaboration with social workers, personal advisors, carers and the wider professional network.
• Highly specialist trauma-informed and attachment based psychological interventions, 1:1 and groups.
• Trauma-informed formulation and consultation to social care teams, including complex risk management planning, to inform pathway planning.
• Supervision and advice to social care teams to support a trauma-informed and psychologically informed understanding of CLA needs.
• Close collaboration with other services supporting CYP, e.g. Adult Mental Health, Safe Connections, EPs.
• Provide specialist advice on recommendations from specialist assessments.
• Provide advice and liaison to professionals where a referral to CAMHS or Adult Mental Health for specialist intervention is required.
• Use outcome/psychometric measures to monitor the effectiveness and experience of CYP and professionals.
• Keep high quality documentation and contribute to reports evaluating the role, identifying areas for improvement.

About us
At Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, we are working together to deliver outstanding care. We run community hospitals and community health services across Worcestershire and provide mental health and learning disability services across both Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Our people (all 4500+ of them) provide services for people of all ages, experiencing both physical and/or mental health conditions from over 100 sites. We will support you to thrive; offer flexible working options for a great work-life balance, help you fulfil your ambitions, and empower you to make positive changes within your team or service. We value diversity and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, cultures, and ethnicities. What we offer;

• 27 days leave plus bank holidays, increasing up to 33 days with long service
• Generous NHS pension and enhanced pay when you work unsocial hours
• Flexible and agile working opportunities
• Great maternity, paternity, and adoption support
• Wide range of supportive staff networks
• Health and wellbeing opportunities

Job responsibilities
Applicants for this post would need to demonstrate strengths in:

• Being able to engage and empower children, young people and the adults supporting them using psychological interventions and psychologically informed practice based on best clinical and professional evidence.
• MDT and multi-agency working and using consultation approaches to support the therapeutic care to children and young people.
• Clinical supervision skills and being able to adapt these to professionals with different levels of training and knowledge of childrens mental health and trauma-informed care.
• Experience of providing teaching on childrens mental health, trauma-informed care and attachment using both formal and informal teaching opportunities.
• Use of outcome measures, gaining and learning from feedback to improve and develop services.

Person Specification
Skills & Abilities
Essential

• Ability to challenge poor behaviour
• Role modelling good behaviour
• A positive attitude and able to act on feedback
• Ability to praise and be supportive to others
• Highly developed and effective communication skills, both oral and written, including ability to communicate complex, highly personal and sensitive information
• Advanced ability to develop and maintain a therapeutic relationship, appropriately
• Advanced ability to develop and maintain a therapeutic relationship, appropriately
• Able to communicate effectively within the team and build good sound working relationships
• Good presentation and teaching skills; able to use multi-media materials for both formal large group situations and small informal settings
• Ability to use IT equipment including literature searches, data bases, patient information systems
• Able to prioritise own work and deal with competing demands to work effectively, within a highly stressed work environment
• Committed to promote patients right, independence and choice e.g., through informed consent for interventions

Qualifications
Essential

• BSc/BA Honours degree at 2:1 or above in Psychology
• Post graduate Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS
• Evidence of regular continuing professional development through further professional training and experience, as required by the HCPC and the BPS
• Eligible for registration as a Chartered Psychologist (Clinical or Counselling) by the BPS
• Registered with HCPC as a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist
• I understand that I will be asked to provide original certificates to verify my qualifications at point of offer.

Experience
Essential

• Experience required specific to the role and clinical area
• Experience of multi-agency and multi-disciplinary working
• Experience of conducting clinically relevant research
• Significant experience of supervised practice including working with families and care organisations
• Experience of assessing and providing a wide range of psychological interventions to a wide range of patients presenting with a full range of clinical severity
• Experience of exercising clinical responsibility for a patients psychological care and treatment

Additional Criteria
Essential

• Able to meet the travel requirements of the post

Knowledge
Essential

• Knowledge required specific to the role and clinical area
• Advanced theoretical and applied knowledge of psychological approaches for people with psychological problems including specialised psychological assessments and interventions for patients with complex psychological presentations and physical health conditions
• Well-developed psychometric assessment skills
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis, as practiced within the field of Clinical/Counselling Psychology

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