Maingrade/Advanced Practitioner Educational Psychologist X2

at  London Borough of Bexley

ABOUT US

Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces and listed heritage sites.

CANDIDATE PROFILE

Due to an increase in demand for the service, we are seeking to appoint innovative HCPC registered Educational Psychologists to take up a full time permanent Advanced Practitioner or Maingrade post. For the Advanced Practitioner post this would be an Educational Psychologist who has gained SPA3, and / or is an experienced EP with clear experience in developing an area of specialism, and who is motivated to progress their skills in supervision.
For the Maingrade Educational Psychologist post we warmly welcome applications from Trainee Educational Psychologists going into their final year of training.
Applicants would also need to demonstrate their commitment to making a difference for our children and young people, their parents, carers and our educational setting staff.

Specifically, we can offer you:

• A genuinely diverse team who have ongoing commitment to hiring a diverse workforce, and who consistently look at issues related to equality and diversity from a holistic lens to address conscious and unconscious bias.
• A creative and friendly team that are highly valued by schools, families and other teams in the Local Authority which offers a prominent level of professional support within a culture of high-quality supervision.
• Excellent CPD opportunities, both within the team and dedicated funding for external courses.
• Opportunities to use professional skills outside of the schools context, working with health and social care
• Dedicated time to deliver therapeutic interventions to children and young people (e.g. CBT, SFBT, VIG).
• Protected time to develop a specialist area of interest.
• Opportunities and dedicated time to supervise assistant educational psychologists and therapeutic play practitioners.
• Clear career progression, with a recognised pathway for awarding SPA Points.
• Additional supervision and support for newly qualified candidates, together with a reduced workload
• Good ICT systems that enable smooth working from home and in our modern office.

All candidates would be expected to hold a good honours degree in Psychology with a post graduate qualification at Masters or Doctorate level which is recognised by the Health Care Professionals Council.
For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached.
Appointment to this post will be subject to the outcome of an Enhanced Disclosure obtained through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS).

In Bexley we are passionate about early intervention, innovation, and multi-agency working. The Educational Psychology team works closely alongside specialist teaching services and other professionals led by a Principal Educational Psychologist and a strong Senior Educational Psychologist team, with a focus on early intervention and collaboration.
Within this structure, there is commitment to Educational Psychologists retaining a strong professional identity and continuing to maintain a high level of professional skills, as well as working collaboratively with other services to achieve better outcomes for children. With the support of 5 years DfE funding we have recently established a team of Assistant Psychologists who are working with our EPs to deliver additional early intervention programmes to our early years and school settings.
The service is highly valued by schools and by colleagues in health and social care, which promotes high quality partnership working and joint project initiatives. There is a strong commitment to continually improving the quality of our assessment, training and project-based interventions. High priority is given to induction, supervision, reflective practice and continuous professional development.
Working as an Advanced Practitioner is an exciting opportunity to develop a particular area of specialism and have additional opportunities for systemic working. As an Advanced Practitioner you would work closely with the SEP team and want to take an extra step in your career, applying psychology at a more systemic level and developing close working relationships with other professionals / agencies. We currently have specific systemic opportunities linked to the areas of neurodiversity or vulnerable children (which includes working with our virtual school).
Please refer to the Job Description attached for more information.
This is a fulltime permanent position, but we would also welcome applications from Educational Psychologists who wish to work on a part time permanent or fixed term basis, as well as trainees who are due to qualify in 2024.
We honour SPA points and reimburse our EPs for HCPC and DBS registration fees.
For an informal discussion about the role please contact Fiona Clark fiona.clark@bexley.gov.uk or call on 0203 045 3229 or Laura.Bakker@bexley.gov.uk.
We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date.
This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.