Assistant Psychologist & Participation Group co-lead

at  Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust

Are you passionate about improving the lives of children and young people with mental health difficulties or emotional disorders? Brent CAMHS needs you. Following successful innovative and transformative projects driven by strong leadership and organizational culture, Brent CAMHS has secured extra investments and funding to expand its workforce capacity.
We are seeking for an enthusiastic and confident Assistant Psychologist with a demonstrable track record of working within CAMHS, of providing high quality evidence-based interventions and service improvements.
Brent is a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse community, and we welcome applicants who are skilled at working within the richness and complexity of multiculturally diverse context.
The successful applicant will be joining a comprehensive and dynamic CAMHS service, located at Monks Park Health Centre, Wembley.
To find out more about working in CAMHS please CLICK HERE for one of our CAMHS video.
To assist practitioner psychologists in the delivery of a specialist applied psychology service in Brent Core CAMHS.
To provide clinical work as required by the service, under the direct guidance, close clinical and professional supervision of a registered practitioner psychologist.
To support the Participation Group
To assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, teaching and project work.
To work following clinical guidelines and the policies and procedures of the service, while closely supervised and regularly seeking help from clinical/professional supervisor or manager.
The Brent CAMH service is based at Monks Park Clinic, Wembley. The team is well established and is staffed by a large multi-disciplinary team of clinicians. We aim to provide an accessible, flexible and responsive local service for patients and professionals working with children in the area using the whole range of therapeutic interventions, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, systemic and family Therapy, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, Psychoeducation, DBT therapy groups and multi-family work as well as Positive Behaviour Support. Brent CAMHS consists of four main sub-teams: Emotional Disorders Team; Neurodevelopmental Team; Enhanced Treatment Team, and; Learning Disabilities (LD-CAMHS). The post holder may be required to travel to other parts of the catchment area and / or wider service and trust as necessary, including working within the community (e.g. schools). The service operates Monday to Friday 09.00 to 17:00 with some flexibility to work extended hours to meet service need.
KR 1 Clinical and Client Care
To provide psychological assessments for clients under the case of Brent CAMHS under the close supervision of a practitioner psychologist including neuropsychological, tests, self-report psychometric measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
To provide protocol based individual psychological interventions for clients under the case of Brent CAMHS.
To arrange, schedule and provide protocol-based group psychological interventions for clients open to Brent CAMHS including psycho-educative and early upskilling CBT groups.
To assist the psychologists in the development of individual or group clinical materials, or training materials.
To arrange, schedule and co-facilitate training to carers or employees of partner agencies in order to support the clinical work with clients.
To raise the quality standards of our Service and ensure that policies and procedures are adhered to and practise in line with the National CAMHS agenda, NICE guidelines and CNWL policies and procedures.
To work in consultation with other members of the team and other participation colleagues from within the CNWL CAMHS service.
Utilising participation groups/resource, to consult with young people and encourage their active participation in all aspects of planning, decision-making and delivery of services.
To be involved in audit and Quality Improvement projects.
To establish and maintain positive relationships with local organisations.
To be actively involved in obtaining feedback from young people and families about their treatment, and take initiative in service improvement processes based on this feedback
To work with service users and their families to develop approaches to monitoring and evaluating client satisfaction. This will include inputting data and producing feedback reports on a regular basis.
To develop, order and maintain appropriate resources and materials, using participatory approaches to help local community’s access local CAMHS services e.g. (video, leaflets and webpages).
To run the local participation group and take a leading role in service user involvement within CAMHS.
KR 2 Contributing to team or service clinical functioning
To contribute to the effective working of Brent CAMHS by registering new referrals; scoring and reporting progress of Routine Outcome Measures & Specialist screeners; contributing information to Education and Health Care Plans; creating databases to track processes or progress through pathways and keeping them up-to-date; contributing to the training and support of other staff in developing and providing psychological care of clients.
To act in a manner that supports a psychologically informed framework for the service.
To participate in the team or service’s delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.
KR 3 Policy and service development
To follow policies and procedures in own area of work
To participate in the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.
KR 4 Care or management of resources
To take care of, and use carefully, the Trust’s equipment and physical resources.
To ensure that the post-holder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting supplies as needed.
To be responsible for safe-keeping of equipment or stock provided to the post holder and informing the supervising psychologist or manager when stock requires replenishing (may apply to psychometric tests, specialised stationery etc.).
KR 5 Teaching and Training
To participate in demonstrating work methods to newly recruited Assistant Psychologists and to support their development of necessary skills.
To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations or published articles.
To arrange, schedule and co-facilitate training to employees of the Team; the Trust or employees of partner agencies in order to support service improvement.
KR 6 Record-keeping and Information Governance
To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.
Under the supervision of the practitioner psychologist to maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry.
To maintain data bases and enter data, and perform analyses and produce reports.
KR 7 Research and development
To assist in the design and implementation of audit and research projects to inform the service Psychologist and others in the development of Trust psychology and other services, training provision and research activities.
To undertake data collection, analysis, the production of reports and summaries, using IT and statistical programmes.
To undertake searches of evidence-based literature and research to assist in the development in the Trust of evidence-based practice.
Under guidance to conduct surveys with service users and carers to gather views on service provision.
KR 8 Maintaining professional standards and continuing professional development
To receive regular clinical and professional supervision in accordance with professional practice guidelines
To gain wider experience of professional psychology within the NHS over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post-holder is employed.
To develop skills and competencies that assist in the delivery of current duties.
To undertake personal training relevant to the post in agreement with the supervising psychologist and the manager.
KR 9 General
To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow trust policies relating to its management.
To remain current with all mandatory / statutory training for the service.
To adhere to local and Trust policies and procedures including Health & Safety, Lone Working, Sickness and Absence, and Annual Leave.
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, as agreed by the post holder’s service manager(s) and professional lead.
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, child and adolescent mental health 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 HCPC, 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 client group and mental health.
To contribute to and implement policy changes and developments within the area served by the team/service, including the 0-25 SEND code of practice (2016).
All CAMHS staff are expected to actively involve service users in decisions about the service and support they receive, to be aware of and inform service users about participation initiatives, and actively support the development of such initiatives to ensure the voice of service users is at the heart of service design, development and delivery

Please refer the Job description for details