Principal Practitioner Psychologist or Psychological TherapistinLondoninLondonPUBLISHED WED 15 JAN 2025

We are seeking an experienced Psychological Practitioner to support an innovative project in the roll-out of trauma-informed approaches (TIA) in our working age adult acute inpatient wards. Many people coming into our inpatient environments have a history of trauma and the experience of being in hospital during a mental health crisis can itself be incredibly traumatic. We are committed to ensuring our wards take a trauma-informed approach to clinical care and to staff support. The successful candidate will work as part of a small MDT supporting this inpatient work across all 4 South London & The Maudsley boroughs. This post will be responsible for delivering the strategy for this work in collaboration with stakeholders from the professional MDTs, service users, carers and local community. They will provide supervision and leadership to local ward staff in each borough to build on work already being done and introduce new approaches. The project will support our strategic priorities around anti-racism, building a culture of trust with the communities we serve and providing outstanding mental health care. Our successful candidate will have extensive experience and skills in working with adults receiving care for severe mental health problems and an advanced understanding of the theory and application of trauma-informed approaches. They will have excellent leadership skills in engaging and working with large groups of diverse stakeholders.

This role will support stakeholder engagement and implementation of the roll-out of trauma-informed approaches and the further development of a trauma-informed culture across our adult acute inpatient wards. The post-holder will support and plan the delivery of a highly specialist consultation service providing expert clinical input, supervision and guidance around TIA. They will be part of a small, centrally based MDT which will in-reach to the teams in each of borough's acute wards augmenting the TIA work being done and supporting the further development of TIA and culture. This post-holder will work alongside all stakeholders including peer workers, service-users, medical, nursing, therapies, social work and psychological professions leads. The strategy for this work will draw on and reflect guidance, research and best practice around trauma-informed approaches across the UK. The post-holder will work closely with leads for the Patient and Carer Race Equity Framework (PCREF) across the boroughs to ensure the strategy encompasses our commitment to anti-racism. We are happy to discuss flexible working at the interview stage.

About us

Key Responsibilities:

Clinical and Client Care

To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the systematic provision of a highly specialist psychological services including offering consultation and supervision, to deliver strategy around the implementation of trauma-informed approaches in inpatient wards .

To provide highly specialist psychological assessments, formulations and interventions for clients with severe mental illness in a inpatient setting.

To provide culturally appropriate trauma-informed psychological interventions with carers or families and with staff when required.

To assess and monitor risk and draw up appropriate risk management plans.

To provide reports, including relevant formulation, opinion and interventions, in order to inform referrers and, where appropriate, service users and their families.

To select and deliver evidence-based specialist trauma-informed approaches and therapeutic interventions, drawing from a spectrum of ideas and models, monitoring outcome and modifying and adapting interventions as necessary, based on the highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, couple, family or group.

To promote psychological support for carers (or families as appropriate) of referred clients.

Responsibilities for team or service clinical functioning

To communicate and implement a trauma-informed strategy for work on the ward in conjunction with the ward MDT.

To co-ordinate (and chair) meetings for (part of a service) to ensure effective functioning and review when appropriate

To take a lead in ensuring a psychologically and psychotherapeutically informed framework for trauma-informed clinical work on the wards.

To take a lead in developing the team or services delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

To be proactive in challenging discrimination and support the development of culturally competent services.

To advise other members of the service on specialist psychological care of clients and in trauma-informed approaches.

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

To liaise with all stakeholders including staff. MDT, service users, families and carers and the wider community.

Policy and service development

To implement policies and procedures in own area of work.

To identify any aspects of trauma-informed care on the wards which could be improved and propose changes to practices or procedures that affect wards and may also affect other services.

To initiate and implement service development projects, as agreed with clinical/professional lead.

To participate in the ongoing implementation of new initiatives (e.g. national guidelines) across relevant services.

To lead the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering trauma-informed services which meet the needs of local communities.

Care or management of resources

To take care of, and use carefully, the Trusts equipment and physical resources.

To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting or ordering supplies as needed.

To monitor and advise clients on the safe use of materials and processes.

To ensure adequate confidential and safe storage for artefacts produced during the therapy process in line with professional guidelines.

To be responsible for obtaining, storing and maintaining all necessary materials and equipment for the provision of therapy in work setting within budgetary constraints.

Management and supervision

To provide clinical leadership to more junior psychological practitioners and other professionals, as appropriate.

To be responsible for the allocation and/or clinical supervision of the work of more junior psychological practitioners.

To supervise trainees within own area of specialism having completed the relevant training.

To contribute to the appraisal of more junior psychological therapists as appropriate.

To contribute to the recruitment of more junior psychological practitioners as appropriate.

To provide professional and clinical supervision to more junior psychological practitioners, trainees and honoraries for all aspects of their work.

To provide management supervision to less senior psychological practitioners.

To provide supervision for trauma-informed approaches and the clinical and psychological work of other multi-disciplinary staff as appropriate.

Teaching and Training

To support the development of and deliver a training package on trauma-informed approaches to MDT staff in inpatient units.

To undertake occasional teaching and training of pre and post-qualification psychological practitioners and specialised training to other professions as appropriate.

To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in trauma-informed care and psychology and by implementing knowledge gained in practice.

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.

Record-keeping and Information Governance

To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

To ensure the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry, in those parts of the service for which the post-holder has leadership responsibility.

Research and development

To carry out and supervise the evaluation of the TIA project including communication and dissemination of learning both within and external to the trust.

To initiate, undertake, support and supervise regular complex service evaluation and audits

To initiate/carry out appropriate research.

To initiate and implement the development of outcome measurement and assessment and assist other staff in the implementation of same.

Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a more senior psychological practitioners according to professional and Trust guidelines.

To maintain own Continuing Professional Development in line with registration body and Trust Personal Development Plan requirements and the professional Standards for Continuing Professional Development.

To maintain an up-to-date knowledge of current developments in professional and clinical practice and of relevant legislation and policies and particularly as relevant to TIA.

To comply with registration body Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics/Standards of Proficiency.

General

To travel to ward and community settings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.

To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow trust policies relating to its management.

To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations ( put in appropriate for service, such as challenging behaviour, abuse etc) and to support others involved in such situations.

To work flexibly which may include offering some occasional commitment to meeting with ward staff outside of 9-5 working hours within the overall Job Plan.

To work closely with Corporate Psychology and Psychotherapy to ensure consistent and timely delivery of staff support within their area across all disciplines. Contributing to the development of the staff support offer in line with relevant quality improvement projects.