Job summary
Employer heading
Practitioner Psychologist
Band 7/8a
WHO WE ARE:
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board is one of the largest Integrated Health Board in the UK, employing over 16,000 staff and providing over 100 specialist services. Serving a population of around 500,000 people living in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, we are focussed on the health
and care needs of our local population whilst also working with our partners to develop regional services. Together we are committed to improving health outcomes for everyone and to delivering excellent care and support.
Our mission is “Living Well, Caring Well, Working Together”. We have recently refreshed our strategy, Shaping Our Future Wellbeing, which sets out the Health Board’s Vision for improving the health and wellbeing of the populations we serve by 2035 through the delivery of our strategic
objectives; Putting People First, Providing Outstanding Quality, Delivering in the Right Places, and Acting for the Future. We have challenging times ahead, but we are confident that by tackling these challenges together, we can support people to live healthier lives and reduce the unfair differences in
the prevalence of illness and health outcomes we see in our communities today. We aspire to deliver outstanding care and treatment for people when they need it, where they need it; care that compares well with the best in the world, but to do so, we need to transform how we deliver services over the
next decade and beyond.
We are a values-driven organisation and out goals will only be realised if our values are at the heart of everything we do. Created by colleagues, patients and their families and carers, our values are:
- We are kind and caring
- We are respectful
- We have trust and integrity
- We take personal responsibility
As an organisation we strongly believe that it is vital our leaders exhibit the behaviours and values that we expect from all our staff.
We are a teaching Health Board with close links to the university sector, and together we are training the next generation of healthcare professionals, while working on research that will hopefully unlock the cures for today’s illnesses
Please be advised that there is a temporary top up for Bands 1,2 and 3 to reflect the incorporation of the top up to the living wage of £12 per hour - £23,465 per annum. This temporary top up will be in place until the annual pay uplift for 2024/25 is confirmed
Job overview
We are looking for energetic and enthusiastic Practitioner Psychologists (band 7/8a or 8a) to complete our team of psychologists working in adult Community Mental Health Teams. Working in CMHTs offers a rich diversity of experiences and opportunities: you will provide a range of psychological services to persons with a wide range of complex or enduring psychological distress (therapy; assessment, including cognitive and other specialist assessments; care planning etc). You will also work with your CMHT colleagues to offer psychological advice, formulation, consultation, supervision and training. There are opportunities for individual & group therapy, service development and research, as well as joint working with our friendly and hard-working team of psychologists.
We have 1.7wte available in total: the posts are envisioned as being substantive (between 0.6wte to 1.0wte) and are likely to be based in our Vale and Hamadryad teams where you would be joining well established psychology colleagues - a rare chance to co-work with an in-CMHT peer.
Main duties of the job
We can offer 7/8a developmental posts, or as 8a posts. The 8a is an excellent opportunity for current band 7s looking to progress their career, and we can support you with making that move. It is also a great opportunity for established 8as who want to be part of our developing service, offering a chance to pursue special interests and actively contribute to service development.
We have a well-established pathway for our 7/8a developmental posts. We offer a professional development programme giving you the opportunity to consolidate your training, and to further develop skills and competencies to transition to 8a through successful completion of the programme.
We have remodelled the structure of psychology services in CMHTs giving us a cohesive structure with increased staffing. Every team has an in-team psychologist and these posts will add to that provision - we have also recently appointed a high intensity psychological therapist to further increase therapy resource. The roles are well supported - we have three locality leads (8b) working with the psychologists in each locality cluster of CMHTs, as well as an 8c service lead who manages these posts.
The ability to speak Welsh is desirable for this post; Welsh and/or English speakers are equally welcome to apply.
Working for our organisation
Our CMHT psychologists work collaboratively across each locality to more flexibly meet the needs of service users- and this also allows for greater peer support, and more opportunities to develop specialist skills and interests. We are looking for people who can further add to our skills mix, and contribute to our active programme of service development, including group interventions and training for CMHT staff in psychosocial approaches.
We have a well-established framework for reflective, caseload and peer supervision, as well as access to model-specific supervision for people using EMDR, IPT or facilitating our DBT groups. We have accredited BABCP practitioners who can supervise and support people who are themselves looking for full CBT accreditation. There are good in-house opportunities for CPD including substantive training in Interpersonal Therapy and Open Dialogue Approach. C&V UHB is fortunate to have a number of services focussed on specific issues (for example, Eating Disorders service) and, for people in full-time posts, there may be opportunities to pursue CPD time in these services. We also have active links with our local doctoral training courses (clinical & counselling) and there are opportunities to provide supervision, research, consultancy and training.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please contact Dr Tansy Mayfield, Lead Consultant - [email protected] – in the first instance to arrange a time for an informal discussion. We can also put you in touch with current members of our team who can talk to you about their experience of working with us. The person specification and job description are attached and please contact us for any further information.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Good Honours degree in Psychology with eligibility for Graduate Basis for Chartership (GBC) with the BPS.
- Post-graduate Doctorate in Clinical/Counselling Psychology accredited by the HCPC (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 as accredited by the BPS) OR (for trainees) doctorate to be completed by October 2024
- HCPC registration as a practitioner psychologist OR (for trainees) eligible by October 2024
Desirable criteria
- 8a Practitioner Psychologist: Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialist areas of psychological practice.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience in applying clinical/counselling psychology in the NHS, including cognitive and structured assessment, formulation, intervention, research and service development.
- Experience of effective multi-disciplinary team working in NHS or equivalent.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working with people with mental health/psychological problems in a medical setting; problems presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings and maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems.
- Experience of teaching/training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
Skills
Essential criteria
- Ability to make clinical and service-related judgments involving complex facts requiring analysis, interpretation and comparison of several options.
- Ability to contribute to the development of, and to implement, agreed policies and strategic long-term service developments.
- Ability to use the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills to convey and receive highly complex/sensitive information effectively, requiring empathy and reassurance, in a highly emotive atmosphere and the ability to overcome psychological resistance to potentially threatening information, whilst maintaining a high degree of professionalism at all times.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of the development and implementation of policies and strategic long-term service developments.
Special knowledge
Essential criteria
- Practitioner Psychologist: Doctoral level knowledge of clinical/counselling psychology theory and practice, assessment, psychological therapies and their application.
- Practitioner Psychologist: Participation with CPD as recommended by the BPS.
Desirable criteria
- 8a Practitioner Psychologist: Post-doctoral training in relevant specialist areas of psychological practice (e.g. assessment of autism; working with psychosis; specific psychosocial approaches).
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Welsh language skills are desirable
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Dr Tansy Mayfield
- Job title
- Consultant Psychologist, Lead for CMHT Psychology
- Email address
- [email protected]
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