Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist in Tolworth inTolworth PUBLISHED FRI 10 JAN 2025 Jump to job information section

We are looking for a Clinical Psychologist to join the Kingston Psychology & Psychotherapies services in the North Kingston Integrated Recovery Hub and Kingston and Richmond Early Intervention Services. The advertised post is split between two teams - the North Kingston Integrated Recovery Hub provides secondary mental health care for adults experiencing moderate to severe mental health difficulties; the Kingston and Richmond Early Intervention Services provides multidisciplinary care to adults experiencing their first episode of psychosis in the line with the National Standard for Early Intervention in Psychosis.

We are preparing to implement the trust's community transformation plans in line with the Community Mental Health Framework, to improve access and provision for clients with severe mental health difficulties. In doing so we will be strengthening relationships with primary care and developing new links with the voluntary sector.

This post is at 8a level but we welcome applications from final year Trainee Clinical Psychologists, and from Clinical / Counselling Psychologists with less than 18 months post qualification experience, who could progress from a Band 7 preceptorship to a Band 8a.

Career Progression pathways and development opportunities:

The trust supports staff to access HEE funded training in EMDR, CBT and Family Interventions for psychosis, as well as opportunities to train in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and to co-facilitate DBT skills groups.

The successful applicant will be committed to MDT working and to advancing trauma informed care across the trust. You will contribute to the delivery of evidence-based psychological therapies for severe and enduring mental health conditions, including psychosis & bipolar affective disorder, personality disorders, and complex mood, anxiety disorders & PTSD. The role is dynamic and will require you to attend multidisciplinary meetings and to offer supervision, consultation, and training to clinicians within the wider MDT team.

Flexible working:

As one of the few Trusts in London we are proud to offer flexible and agile working as part of our new ways of working, and we are happy to talk flexible working at the interview stage.

The Trust is committed to supporting flexible working, including a blended approach of on-site and home working.

About us

1.To 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 and neuropsychological 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.

2.To 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.

3.To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions forindividuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

4.To 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.

5.To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.

6.To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

7.To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settingsand agencies serving this client group of people with severe and enduring mental health problems.

8.To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

9.To act as care coordinator, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans under enhanced CPA including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care.

10.To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care, integrating the contribution of other professionals on the basis of client need.

11.To effectively draw on a variety of sources to establish care plans and treatment formulations in a context in which much data may be unavailable because of the clients inability to express themselves and because of the loss of much historical information, when early life has been extremely disrupted.

12.To be able to overcome a variety of barriers to communication when working with clients who are fearful of others, unable to articulate their problems or who think within a very different frame of reference, requiring imaginative and sensitive approaches towards engagement.

13.To provide a service that operates in a range of community settings; individual homes and hostels, community houses, inpatient units and team base requiring particular attention to issues of risk and confidentiality.

14.To manage time effectively and efficiently as a sparse resource in a context of high level demand.

15.To contribute to the teams duty system as required.