Band 8a Clinical/Counselling Psychologist - Psychosis EI, Bristol

at  Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

We are looking for someone who is interested in taking up a 2 day a week Secondment/ fixed term post to work alongside the current Early Intervention Lead Psychologist Service for 23 months. You will need to be enthusiastic, committed and experienced as a Clinical/ counselling Psychologist. This is a great opportunity for someone wanting to develop into an 8A role as you will be working alongside the current lead psychologist based in the Early Intervention Service.

The role includes provision of specialist integrated clinical / counselling psychology interventions to the Early Intervention team. You will assess, formulate and offer interventions to service users on the waiting list for psychological therapy. Your role will also involve working closely with the Early Intervention team to attend team meetings, offer consultation and supervision to the team. You will work closely with therapy leads to manage capacity effectively to respond to demand placed upon the service. Your role also involves working closely with the manager of the Early Intervention Team.

• To provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients and carers within the Bristol Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) Service.
• To provide highly specialist advice and consultation on clients’ formulation and psychological management to other non-psychologist colleagues.
• To use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to the more effective management of patients by the various teams in the area and where appropriate outside of the area.
• To clinically supervise/line manage trainee clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists, CAPs and less experienced psychology staff, and other professionals.
• To contribute to audit, research, policy and service development within the Early Intervention team.
• To develop and deliver training in psychological therapies for multidisciplinary staff.
• To provide a lead role for the CPI within EIP team.

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.
Descri p tion o f t he du t ies

TRAINING AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT

• To provide supervision for clinical psychology trainees from regional training courses and elsewhere as appropriate.
• To provide training, supervision and consultation in psychological approaches to other staff in multidisciplinary teams. This is to include joint assessment, formulation of psychological problems and planning of interventions to be implemented by other team members with service users.
• To contribute to the development of a psychologically based framework of understanding and care across service settings through providing teaching, training, consultation and supervision.
• To provide training and supervision to assistant psychologists.
• To participate in peer supervision arrangements for psychologists in the area.
• To collaborate with colleagues to develop and offer training courses, workshops and supervision groups to develop psychological skills for staff in the area.
• To contribute to the teaching of students and trainees in psychology, medicine, nursing and other health care disciplines.
• To agree a plan of personal development with the line manager and professional lead for the service.
• Provide inclusive, compassionate and effective leadership for your team by setting clear vision and direction.
• Develop a culture and environment in which members of staff are encouraged and supported to deliver high- quality services and are supported to innovate and improve services where appropriate.
• Encourage your team to feel able to raise concerns openly and safely.
• Promote equality of opportunity in service delivery and employment, ensuring that no person receives less favourable treatment than another on the grounds of gender, marital status, race, religion, creed, colour nationality ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation or disability.
• Support prompt recruitment by identifying vacancies to the AWP Recruitment Team as soon as they arise, and participate in the selection and effective induction and onboarding of new joiners to the team.
• Ensure that all team members have a very positive introduction to the team and a well-supported first year.
• Take responsibility for encouraging people to stay with AWP, ensuring that you are aware whenever a member of your team is considering leaving, seeking to understand their reasons and encouraging them to stay.
• Ensure that key messages are cascaded in your team and that your team are encouraged to put forward suggestions.
• Show appreciation to your team when they do good work and support them when they are struggling.
• Consider the individual needs of team members for a healthy work-life balance and think about how their needs can be supported by providing flexible ways of working.
• Support all team members to keep their mandatory and statutory training up-to-date and identify the learning and development needs of all team members of the team ensuring that everyone has an up-to-date personal development plan (PDP).

• To provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients and carers within the Bristol Early Intervention for Psychosis (EIP) Service.
• To provide highly specialist advice and consultation on clients’ formulation and psychological management to other non-psychologist colleagues.
• To use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to the more effective management of patients by the various teams in the area and where appropriate outside of the area.
• To clinically supervise/line manage trainee clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists, CAPs and less experienced psychology staff, and other professionals.
• To contribute to audit, research, policy and service development within the Early Intervention team.
• To develop and deliver training in psychological therapies for multidisciplinary staff.
• To provide a lead role for the CPI within EIP team