Clinical/Counselling Psychologist Band 7 / 8a

Clinical/Counselling Psychologist Band 7 / 8a Band 7 - Band 8a Main area: Mental Health

Grade: Band 7 - Band 8a

Contract: There are several permanent posts available;

• Full time
• Part time

37.5 hours per week (Full and Part time hours available)

Job ref: 350-MHC

Site: Various bases across MHCD Town, Merseyside

Salary: £46,148 - £60,504 per annum

Salary period: Yearly

Closing: 12/03/:59

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.

We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore, we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us.

Job overview A range of exciting opportunities have arisen within the Trust's Mental Health Care Division to join well-established, supportive teams of practitioners meeting the psychological needs of service users across our mental health services.

We're excited to offer a bespoke recruitment event for permanent Band 7/8a (dependent on experience and subject to preceptorship) practitioner psychologist posts which will provide you with the opportunity to learn more about the Division and the areas where we currently hold vacancies.

Several posts are available:

• 1.0 wte eating disorders clinical/counselling psychologist based in St Helens / Knowsley
• 1.8 wte adult clinical/counselling psychologist based in Liverpool and/or Sefton
• 1.0 wte adult clinical/counselling psychologist based in Warrington.
• 1.0 wte adult clinical/counselling psychologist based in St Helens

Main duties of the job If you're a qualified practitioner psychologist with experience, skills, and enthusiasm, you'll help to provide quality services to our service users.

You'll work within a team to support people with a range of psychological issues by providing specialist psychological assessment, therapy, and interventions to service users and carers, making use of a range of models, where appropriate. You'll also offer specialist advice, leadership, and consultation to non-psychologist colleagues and support the development of psychological skills across the whole workforce through specialist training, supervision, mentorship, and reflective practice.

Psychological input is highly valued by staff within services, so you'll need experience of working with other services, championing psychological interventions and developing working partnerships.

Working for our organisation Continual professional development is central to the post. We'll provide you with a wide range of training to meet your individual and service needs. Over recent years, staff have been funded for training courses in: EMDR, ACT, DBT, MBT, CBT, CFT and full CAT training. You'll also receive additional specialist supervision, if you need it.

We're keen on career progression and will support your training in leadership and management if you wish. Our aim is to support, develop and retain you at Mersey Care for many years to come!

Detailed job description and main responsibilities You'll be a team player, part of a supportive multidisciplinary team delivering multi-tiered psychosocial interventions. We'll be particularly keen if you have a strong background in person-centred and human rights-based approaches to healthcare, with a positive attitude and a strong understanding and commitment to integrated team working.

You'll have a strong commitment to social justice as we're committed to supporting people from socially disadvantaged communities. You'll have excellent communication and people skills and a proven passion for improving the lives of clients and their families.

You may be expected to audit and evaluate a range of outcomes in terms of the benefit for service users, staff, and the wider service. An active interest in research, publication, and supporting others to develop their evaluation skills will be an advantage.

All posts are suitable for newly qualified and current clinicians. Relevant training, support, and experience will be provided to ensure that if you're successful, you'll be eligible to apply for preceptorship to an 8a clinical psychology post - if professional qualifications allow and after demonstrating significant demonstrable post-qualifying experience. If you already have relevant training and experience, you'll be able to start at band 8a.

Can you please state in your application which post(s) you are interested in and whether you are seeking full or part-time hours.

Person specification KNOWLEDGE/EXPERIENCE

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of teaching, training, and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of administering and interpreting neuropsychological assessments.
• Further training in working with older people or people living with dementia.

VALUES

• Accountability
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet

Skills

• Expertise in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, formulation, intervention, and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed and effective communication skills, oral and written, to communicate complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design, and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Knowledge of IT systems including word processing, email, and local electronic patient information systems.
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multimedia materials suitable for presentations within public, professional, and academic settings.
• Reasonable adjustments will be made for those with sensory impairment.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of service governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult-to-treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities, etc.).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of at least one specialised psychological therapy.
• Supervision training.

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology accredited by the BPS or its approved equivalent.
• HCPC registered or eligible for registration on qualification.
• Pre or post-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training, and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Please ensure you check the email account from which you apply for all correspondence. All information regarding your application will come from apps.trac.jobs not NHS Jobs.

Only those applicants who demonstrate clearly how they meet our person specification will be shortlisted for interview.

As a Disability Confident Employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants who consider themselves to be disabled who meet the minimum (essential) criteria for the role in the person specification. If you would like your application to be considered under the Trust's guaranteed interview scheme you can indicate this in the personal information section of your online application form.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.

We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.

The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role to subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £16 per year and maintain registration.

Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.
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