Assistant Psychologist

An exciting opportunity has arisen to recruit an Assistant Psychologist to our established Psychology Team which provides a community service across Greater Manchester to service users with a learning disability and/or autism who present with forensic risk or risk of hospital admission or placement breakdown. The Greater Manchester Specialist Support Team (SST), based in Eccles, provides additional support to those who are at risk of contact with the Criminal Justice System or Hospital admission. The SST is a multidisciplinary team consisting of Psychology, Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Nursing, and Support Workers. This is a great opportunity to gain experience in multidisciplinary and systemic working, as the role involves liaising with the local Learning Disability, Mental Health and Autism services and Criminal Justice agencies to develop proactive and preventative risk mitigation support. You will have the opportunity to develop your skills of psychological formulation and advice and consultation under supervision of, and joint working with, qualified clinical psychologists. This role involves direct and indirect working to develop specialist risk assessments and formulations. You will receive regular clinical supervision from a qualified Clinical Psychologist., To support and enhance the professional psychological care and risk management of service users within the service and across all relevant agencies.The post holder is expected to work in wide range of community settings. This includes working into service user's homes, supported living, and can include visits to prisons, approved premises and probation. The post holder will be primarily based in Eccles within our offices. The post holder is expected to work with service users, who can present with high risk of harm to themselves or others and can also have histories of offending. The postholder will work with potentially distressing material in relation to service users' personal histories, offending behaviour and risks to self and others. The post holder will be expected to undertake and/or contribute to psychological assessments/ formulations of a service users' presentation, needs and risk, which may include direct and/or indirect structured observations, and semi-structured interviews with service users, carers and others involved in their care or management. The post holder will provide provide a psychological perspective into MDT meetings, work with staff teams around the person and be involved in staff training where needs arise., Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full detailsand requirementsof the role.

• A First or Upper Second honours degree in psychology OR a lower class with a post-graduate qualification. (e.g., Master's degree).
• Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society (GBR)
• ECDL or demonstrable proficiency with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Publisher and SPSS, Degree included study of psychopathology/ clinical/ forensic issues
• Further training in relevant areas of professional psychology, MH practice, PBS, autism, PD and/ or research design and analysis, Knowledge of psychological approaches to working with people who have mental health needs or behaviours that challenge (e.g., Positive Behaviour Support, Trauma Informed Care, Person Centred Care etc)
• An understanding of the needs and difficulties of people with mh problems....
• An understanding of psychology applied to health care, Good written and spoken English
• Good keyboard skills
• Good inter-personal skills
• Good organisational skills
• Ability and willingness to travel for work
• Recognises the limits of own competence and need for supervision., Ability to carry out instructions, use own initiative but recognise own limits and can utilise and tolerate supervision effectively
• High level of communication skills including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive
• Ability to use library effectively
• Ability to accept and use supervision appropriately and effectively, Has experience of face-to-face work within psychology
• Experience of working in a setting comparable to that in which the post in based
• Experience of working in MDT
• Experience of research methods
• Has worked with other psychologist and/ or mental health professionals
• Experience using computers for databases or data-analysis
  
  Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities. At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.