Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist

Senior Clinical or Counselling Psychologist Wehave a number of full and part time opportunities to join our dedicated StaffPsychological Support Service at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. The postsprovide invaluable support within two clinical areas: Abdominal Medicine andSurgery and Adult Critical Care. Staff within both areas are regularlyexposed to distressing events, as well as facing the usual demands of workingwithin the NHS. Both areas have an established and highly valued StaffPsychological Support service, with leaders and staff being enthusiastic andwelcoming of psychological approaches to wellbeing.

Additionally,we have new incoming fixed-term funding, with potential to become permanent,to support staff working in our maternity services. Candidates can beconsidered for this area of work too.

Theposts are advertised as Band 8a positions, however we can offer a Band 7preceptorship post for the right candidate, and are willing to considerapplications from current third year Trainee Psychologists. Please indicatein your application if you are interested in a Band 7 to 8a preceptorship. Wevalue and support a positive work-life balance and therefore requests forflexible working through part time hours will be considered.

Main duties of the job Thesuccessful candidate/s will work alongside other experienced psychologists,in consultation with leaders in the clinical service area, to offer a rangeof individual, group and service level interventions to respond to the needsof the workforce. The post holder/s will be supported by the Trust Wide StaffPsychological Support team, which comprises 11 friendly psychologicalprofessionals. We actively protect opportunities to share expertise andprovide collegial support in this relatively new and innovative clinicalspecialism.

Thepost/s offer an excellent opportunity to gain experience in the innovativefield of Staff Psychological Support. In doing so, you will develop a varietyof skills, working with leaders, teams and individuals. There will beopportunities to facilitate reflective practice and to develop bespokeformulation-driven team interventions and training. In addition, thepost-holder/s will support the Post Event Support pathway, developing thepathway and facilitating individual and group debriefs following distressingevents at work. We encourage opportunities to collaborate with the LeedsClinical Psychology training course and to provide trainee placements andresearch projects.

Servicesare based across both St James Hospital and Leeds General Infirmary, as wellas other sites across the Trust. A visible presence and across-site workingis essential for fostering effective working relationships and engagingstaff.

About us TheLeeds Teaching Hospitals Trust is a large organisation. Abdominal Medicineand Surgery has a large workforce of over 1500 staff and Adult Critical Careemploys over 600 staff. Our Maternity and Gynaecology services employ over900 staff. Importantly, all theseclinical services are enthusiastic about supporting staff, and engagedwith psychological approaches to wellbeing. As such they are welcoming andkeen to work with a psychologist to optimise the conditions and support fortheir workforce.

Thewider Staff Psychological Support service is made up of Psychologists,Counsellors, Assistant Psychologists and Trainees Psychologists, which sitswithin the large Psychological Services Department. The department isextremely welcoming and supportive, with a breadth of experience and skillsand strong links to the regional clinical training programme. We benefit froma range of regular SIGs and EDI working groups.

LeedsTeaching Hospitals is committed to our process of redeploying 'at risk'members of our existing workforce to new roles. As such, all our job advertsare subject to this policy and we reserve the right to close, delay or removeadverts while this process is completed. If you do experience a delay in theshortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while thisprocess is completed, and contact the named contact if you have anyquestions.

Job responsibilities Toprovide a qualified Clinical or Counselling Psychology service to NHS staffmembers and teams, across all sites and sectors of care by:

• a) Providing highly specialistpsychological assessment and interventions,
• b) Offering advice and consultation onservice users psychological wellbeing needs
• c) Using research skills for audit,policy and service development and leading on research projects within thearea served by the team/service
• d) Working autonomously in the executionof these duties and within professional guidelines and the overall frameworkof the Psychology Teams, Department and Trust policies and procedures.

PRINCIPALDUTIES & AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY Clinical:

1. To provide specialist psychologicalassessments based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration ofcomplex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests,self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observationsand semi-structured interviews with staff members and appropriate others.
2. To formulate, develop and implementplans for psychological interventions to address staff member and teamwellbeing, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of presentingneeds, and employing evidence-based methods.
3. To be responsible for implementing arange of psychological interventions within and across teams employedindividually and in systems, adjusting and refining psychologicalformulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining anumber of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions aboutintervention options taking into account both theoretical and therapeuticmodels and highly complex factors concerning historical, systemic anddevelopmental processes that have shaped the individual or group.
5. To exercise autonomous professionalresponsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users.
6. To provide specialist psychologicaladvice, guidance and consultation to other professionals and stakeholders,contributing directly to staff members mental health and workplacewellbeing.
7. To contribute directly and indirectlyto a psychological understanding of staff members and teams occupationalwellbeing needs.
8. To undertake risk assessment and riskmanagement for individual service users and to provide advice to otherprofessions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
9. To act as care co-ordinator, whereappropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of careplans under enhanced CPA (or its equivalent in the acute physical health caresetting) including patients, their carers referring agents and othersinvolved in the network of care.
10. To communicate in a skilled andsensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation andintervention plans of service users under their care and to monitor progressduring the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Teaching,training, and supervision

1. To receive regular clinicalprofessional supervision from a more senior clinical/counselling psychologistand, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues
2. To gain additional highly specialistexperience and skills relevant to clinical/counselling psychology and theservice (as agreed with the Lead Psychologist and Head of Department) up totwo sessions per week.
3. To develop skills in the area ofprofessional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to providesupervision to other MDT staffs psychological work as appropriate.
4. To provide professional and clinicalsupervision of doctoral trainee and graduate/ assistant psychologists.
5. To contribute to the pre- andpost-qualification teaching of clinical, health and/or counsellingpsychology, as appropriate.
6. To provide advice, consultation andtraining to staff working across a range of agencies and settings, whereappropriate.

Management,recruitment, policy and service development

1. To contribute to the development,evaluation and monitoring of the team, specialty and department operationalpolicies and services, through the deployment of professional skills inresearch, service evaluation and audit.
2. To advise both the service and theLead Psychologist on those aspects of the service where psychological and/ororganisational matters need addressing.
3. To manage the workloads of assistantgraduate psychologists and doctoral trainee clinical psychologists, within the framework of the team/specialty and Department policies and procedures.
4. To be involved, as appropriate, inthe short listing and interviewing of assistant / graduate psychologists.

Researchand service evaluation

1. To utilise theory, evidence-basedliterature and research to support evidence based practice in individual workand work with other team members.
2. To undertake, as a major component ofthe post, appropriate research and provide research advice to other staffundertaking research, and to disseminate appropriate material viapresentation and publication.
3. To lead on research projects withinthe area served by the team/service.
4. To undertake project management,including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within theservice to help develop service provision.
5. To provide appropriate researchsupervision of doctoral trainees and graduate assistant psychologists.

Person Specification Skills & Behaviours

. click apply for full job details