Band 8b Clinical / Counselling Psychologist - Bristol / Weston-super-Mare

To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the psychological provision for older people on BNSSG wards, primarily overseeing specialist later life ward care but also considering care for older people who are admitted to other acute mental health wards or psychiatric intensive care units (PICUs).

To use strong leadership skills to ensure that ongoing Inpatient Transformation projects relevant to psychology meet the needs of older people.

As agreed, to provide clinical/managerial supervision to later life inpatient psychologists and to provide specialist consultation to the wider system.

To collaborate in covering inpatient psychology management tasks, as delegated by the Divisional lead for Inpatient Psychological therapies.

To personally provide highly specialist clinical input through carrying a small caseload.

To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.

To promote service evaluation, audit, research and policy development.

We are looking for a dynamic and enthusiastic lead for Later Life Inpatient Psychology to oversee psychological and psychologically-informed care for older people on AWP wards covering Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

It is an exciting time to join us and help shape our response to the national aspiration to transform inpatient mental health care. You will need to be an experienced psychologist with extensive knowledge of inpatient care for older people with a track record of service-level working including service development and training development/delivery. The post holder will significantly contribute to work developing multidisciplinary inpatient training in Trauma Informed Care and psychologically-informed care approaches (including Comprehend Cope Connect formulation), whilst expanding the access to psychological therapy on wards, ensuring the needs of older people are understood and responded to throughout. The successful candidate will need strong leadership skills in order to build relationships and achieve the ambitions of inpatient transformation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust):a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.

We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.