Senior Practitioner Psychologist or Specialist Psychological Therapist

at  Sussex Partnership NHS FoundationTrust

We are delighted to be advertising for a Senior Practitioner Psychologist or Senior Specialist Psychological Therapist (Band 8a) to join the Chichester Assessment and Treatment Service (ATS). The ATS is a friendly, well regarded multidisciplinary team that delivers specialist support and clinical interventions to adults with severe and complex mental health difficulties. This post provides an exciting opportunity for someone with sound clinical experience, looking to broaden the delivery of specialist therapy skills and progress their multidisciplinary team working, supervision, training and leadership roles.
Applications are welcome from experienced Practitioner Psychologists or specialist Psychological Therapists (CBT or Systemic) with knowledge and skills of working with severe and enduring mental health difficulties. It is important to the role that you have experience in MDT teamworking, teaching and supervision. We would also welcome applications from Practitioner Psychologists (Clinical or Counselling) who are about to qualify and this post could be offered as a Band 7 to 8a development opportunity. This would be an excellent post to consolidate your training and progress your career development.
The post holder will provide a high quality, specialist applied psychological therapy service to clients, their families or carers, where there are complex presentations. They will have strong skills in assessment, intervention and formulation; and experience of delivering evidence based psychological therapy and be informed by attachment-based models. The post holder will take a clinical leadership role and will have supervisory experience. They will contribute to the supervision of more junior Psychology staff and will support psychological practice within the wider team through consultation, supervision, formulation and training. There are opportunities for audit, quality improvement and to contribute to service development.
You would be joining a cohesive network of Psychology staff all passionate about improving choice and outcomes for people with complex presentations. We are looking for someone with a strong commitment to team working and service user involvement. You will receive high standards of supervision and will be well supported. We have an established programme of CPD, peer supervision and reflective practice for Psychology staff. This is a good time for career development opportunities and we can support you to access training and specialist supervision. You will have the opportunity to pursue specialist interests and expertise in line with service objectives.
Chichester ATS is a compassionate place to work with strong leadership and dedicated staff from all disciplines. We are proud of what we do and strive to maintain and improve the quality of the treatments we provide. We appreciate the demands of providing treatment to people with complex needs and work to ensure that staff are supported by a psychologically safe work environment, with access to a range of staff support services and a culture of learning and reflective practice. We strive to promote a good work-life balance for our staff.
In this post, you would be working primarily from the Chapel Street base in Chichester. A car is not essential as Chichester has good transport links and is easily accessible by rail. There may be the opportunity for some days of your working week to be based working from home.
Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health, learning disability and substance misuse services throughout Sussex. It aims to realise the potential of everyone who uses its services and delivers care within the region. Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust promotes high quality clinical research and staff involvement in research and quality improvement. Sussex partnership has teaching status and is developing into one of the country’s leading teaching mental health trusts. The Trust was rated as Good in the 2019 CQC inspection.
To provide a qualified, high-quality specialist psychology service to individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams, in line with best, evidence-based practice and trust care pathways.
To be responsible for holding and managing a clinical caseload and to exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the planning and prioritising of own workload and the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients, within the bounds of the service operational policy.
To use analytical and judgment skills and be responsible for taking clinical management decisions in complex clinical issues.
To clinically supervise assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists and junior psychologists, psychological therapists or counsellors and other staff as appropriate.
To professionally supervise and, when appropriate, manage, assistant psychologists and trainee psychologists
To provide consultation, mentorship, supervision and advice about psychological issues to other members of the team/service and other professionals working with service users, across a range of agencies/ settings as appropriate.
To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the service/team
To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit, and to advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
To utilise research skills to undertake service evaluation, audit and research as appropriate and disseminate the results in the service and nationally.
To propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the service

Please refer the Job description for details