Clinical Psychologist inSouthampton inSouthampton PUBLISHED WED 16 OCT 2024

Swanwick Lodge is a secure children's home caring for up to 10 young people who are held under section 25 of the Children's Act, on welfare placements. The home is owned and run by Hampshire County Council, who deliver the care and education for the young people in the home. Young people typically stay for around 6 months, but this can vary based on their individual needs.

The post holder will join an engaging, friendly and supportive team that is a valued resource within the home. The health and wellbeing team is commissioned separately to the care and education elements in the home, but we work together very closely with our integrated colleagues to understand and meet the needs of the young people. As part of integrated working our delivery is scaffolded by the SECURE STAIRS framework and a central part of our role is to offer wellbeing support to the wider team including the delivery of training and a variety of reflective spaces. This is to promote a system wide, trauma informed approach to the understanding of the young people we are working with.

We are hoping to increase our therapeutic work with families and so we are particularly interested to hear from applicants who are passionate about systemic working. Opportunities for further systemic training and supervision will be available.

This is a varied role, which provides opportunities for direct clinical work as well as working systemically with colleagues and families. The post holder will take a lead in contributing towards a psychologically informed environment through assessment, formulation, and interventions. This will be in addition to providing reflective practice, consultation, supervision and teaching and training. CPD is strongly supported, and the successful applicant will have the opportunity to develop specialism in their areas of interest.

We have a track record of innovation and service development which we strive to maintain and improve upon; developing both evidence-based interventions as well as providing practice-based evidence to support new ways of working. The post holder will be supported to pursue research interests and we have strong links with the Southampton Doctorate in Clinical Psychology course for providing placement and thesis supervision.

About us

To provide a systemic psychology service of a high quality to the multidisciplinary team, and across all sectors of care. To promote an integrated approach enhancing the delivery of trauma informed care. To provide psychological assessment and therapy to young people within the service. To provide advice and consultation through formulation, on psychological intervention and risk to non-psychologist colleagues, external agencies and non-professional carers. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service's policies and procedures. To utilise research skills for audit, policy, service development and research within the area served by the service. To undertake a personal research and development programme and develop and encourage a research culture within the clinical team.

To provide specialist psychological assessments of young people 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 young people, family members and others involved in the person's care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a person's mental health problems and risky behaviour, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the young person's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.

To provide a psychological opinion about diagnoses, treatment needs and risk and to represent these as appropriate, to multiagency meetings both internal and external to Swanwick Lodge.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses

To work with the multidisciplinary team in developing and implementing psychological interventions for the management of specific difficulties.

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.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the specialist assessment and treatment of individuals whose problems are managed by psychological, trauma informed based care plans.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals and external agencies contributing directly to young people's formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all young people and staff throughout the home and across all settings and agencies serving the young people placed with us.

To undertake and develop a core competency in risk assessment and risk management for individuals and to provide advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of young people under our care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

To deal appropriately with the intense emotional atmosphere surrounding therapy contacts on a daily basis and to work with frequent intense concentration for the clinical sessions of assessment and therapy.

To work as an autonomous, independent practitioner responsible for own work and interventions, their prioritising and planning and for the interpretation of agreed guidelines and policies

To sit in a constrained position for patient therapy, staff meetings and extended assessment.

To tolerate and manage verbal abuse and occasional physical aggression. Training and critical awareness of physical intervention procedures (Team Teach) is required.

To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team's operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.

To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.

To be actively involved in the Clinical governance activities within the Service and Trust

Clinical Supervision, Teaching and Training

To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staff's work, where appropriate.

To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre-and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.

To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychologists.

To contribute to the training and supervision of trainee clinical and/or counselling psychologists ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment of such competencies.

To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the patient group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.

Receive regular supervision in accordance with good practice guidelines.

Professional Leadership and Management

To manage the workloads of assistant and trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the service's policies and procedures.

To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant/graduate psychologists.

To participate in the planning and development of the services for individuals and their families at Swanwick Lodge as is appropriate to the post holder's level of experience

Management and Recruitment

To support and participate in professional psychology recruitment as appropriate.

To represent the Psychology perspective on relevant working groups within the service and more widely as agreed with their manager.

Information Technology

Update patient records

To have at least a basic level of competency in use of Trust IT equipment, software, intra- and extra-net, in order to facilitate clinical and service related work.

Research and Development

To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to help develop service provision.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and work with other team members

To undertake a personal research and development programme and also develop and encourage a research culture within the team, providing research advice to other staff.

General

To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the post holder's professional and service manager(s). HCPC registration as a Clinical Psychologist is required for this post.

To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of clinical psychology and related disciplines.

To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.

To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific patient group and mental health.

Further information about the Trust and this role can be found on the Job Description and Person Specification document attached.

We are happy to talk Flexible Working - all requests for flexible working options can be discussed as part of the interview process.