Band 4 Assistant Psychologist - Green Lane Hospital

at  Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

This is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic, flexible and dynamic psychology graduate, with clinical experience in mental health services, to join the dementia service in Wiltshire. The role offers ample opportunity for those seeking clinical experience of work with older people and/or to broaden their neuropsychology experience. Clinical psychology is an essential and highly valued part of these dedicated and knowledgeable multi-disciplinary teams.
The Care Home Liaison team, which forms part of the Wiltshire Dementia Service, has been developed to support care home staff and primary care clinicians to enhance care delivery to older people experiencing mental and physical health problems and dementia. The service aims to provide help to improve care, help maintain residents in their current setting and reduce hospital admissions, ultimately enabling people to remain in their own care homes. The role will involve in-reach into this service and offers the opportunity to provide psychosocial assessment, formulation and intervention to care home staff and the multi-disciplinary team.
The Wiltshire Dementia Service also provides neuropsychological assessment, to aid diagnosis and intervention, from early onset through to the advanced stages of dementia. This role requires a good working knowledge of mental health and neurological problems commonly experienced by older people.
Direct clinical work includes assessment, rehabilitation and therapies with individuals, families and wider social networks, drawing on a range of therapeutic approaches guided by service user needs.
You will work in a team of highly skilled clinicians providing rapid and specialist advice on person centred care planning and the delivery of specialist mental health and dementia care.
Under close supervision you will be supported to develop psychological formulations, and provide assessments and therapeutic interventions to people seen in our dementia services. You will be part of a broader multidisciplinary team. You may also be facilitating therapeutic groups and 1:1 interventions. You will receive weekly supervision and training in relevant psychological approaches.
Under the direction and guidance of the Consultant Clinical Psychologist you will communicate psychological approaches, develop interventions, tools and resources for the staff team, service users, their families and carers.
Travel is a core part of the job as the post is Wiltshire-wide. It is essential that you are able to efficiently and effectively get from your base to meetings and other parts of the Trust.
You will need to have excellent communication skills and ideally have previous experience of working in the health or social care field in a paid or voluntary capacity.
We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.
We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.
Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.
At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.
Our ethos is for every member of the team to grow as a clinician, and to be supported to maintain their wellbeing in both life and in work. Clinical supervision is provided by experienced senior clinical psychologists. We meet regularly for supervision, complex case discussions, as well as with the wider professional group across AWP.
Key Result Areas

E PHYSICAL SKILLS:

To be proficient in the use of technologies to access email, complete internet literature/ resource searches, and produce reports and presentations.
To produce report and letters for others involved in the service user’s care.
To be proficient in use of virtual technologies for delivery of care where required and appropriate.

The Wiltshire Dementia service is a busy clinical service and the assistant psychologist will play a vital role in providing both assessments and psycho-educational interventions to individual service users.
The service is required to meet key performance targets including waiting times which means a busy working environment at all times.
Review
These duties are intended to be a guide to the post and should not be considered exhaustive. It is subject to review, depending on the needs of the department. The post holder will be encouraged to participate in any such review. The Trust is committed to regular performance appraisal (including setting objectives for review annually) and agreement of personal development plans for all staff to enhance their ability to fulfil the requirements of their post