Consultant Clinical Psychologist

We are inviting applications from psychological therapists from a core professional background (e.g. Psychiatric nurses, Social workers, OT's) to join our Personality Disorder Pathway in the North West of Hertfordshire. The post holder will be based in Hemel Hempstead. Working closely with the local DBT leads, this post offers an exciting opportunity to join an established group of therapists who provide a local DBT service, as well as joining the wider network of therapists, locally and across the trust. The post holder will provide specialist psychological assessment and treatment to clients with a diagnosis of personality disorder within the service and provide specialist support, guidance and consultation to colleagues, carers and other agencies regarding the psychological care of clients. There will be many opportunities for close working with local and quadrant-wide psychological therapy teams and other psychological therapy colleagues. The post holder will act as a resource on positive risk-taking and the management of people with personality disorder, for staff within the community hubs, and work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team's policies and procedure.Main duties of the job To have good working relationships with multi-disciplinary colleagues in the community mental health team setting To maintain close working relationships with psychological therapy colleagues both locally and quadrant-wide To promote and maintain good working relationships with colleagues in the local Hub and beyond and with GPs and other stakeholders in the service. To work closely with both psychological therapies staff and other non-psychological therapy colleague To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the team's policies and procedure To utilise research skills for audit, teaching, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service To provide specialist psychological assessment and treatment including a range of evidence-based group and individual psychological interventions To provide specialist support, guidance, and consultation relevant to personality disorders on clients' psychological care to other multi-disciplinary professional, To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self- report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients' care. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client's mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care setting To be responsible for implementing psychological interventions from within your area of specialty for individuals, carers, families, and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining the psychological formulation according to the evolving clinical scenario. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plan For full details of the role and responsibilities for this vacancy please refer to the Job Description and Person Specification documents attached.

• Qualification and continuing registration in one of the core mental health professions (e.g. psychiatric nursing, social work, occupational therapy).
• Continuing registration with body overseeing practice of core mental health profession (e.g. NMC, HCPC).
• Completion of DBT Training or willingness and aptitude to train - if the opportunity arises, to undertake the PGDiploma in DBT, Experience of assessment and treatment of clients across a full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, adult mental health and in patient settings
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, including adults with personality disorders. Experience across the whole life span 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
• Knowledge of whole life span development and the impact on emotional, psychological and mental well-being
• Experience of multi-disciplinary team working and inter-agency collaboration
• Ability to take the appropriate action to address any issues or risks
• Awareness of Child and Adult Safeguarding Procedures
• Awareness of current NHS initiatives and Developments
• Knowledge and awareness of specific clinical practices and issues relating to clients with mental health problems
• Ability to work autonomously as well as part of a team
• Experience of working in a community mental health setting
Desirable criteria
• Experience of teaching, training and/or offering supervision, Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Ability to communicate orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/ or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Ability to work and communicate therapeutically with clients and their families consistent with their level of understanding, culture, background and preferred ways of communicating
• Ability to work and communicate as a responsible participating member of a multi- disciplinary team and the ability to respect and value other members' contributions and to encourage participation of all involved
• Ability to keep accurate and complete records of activities and communications consistent with legislation, policies and procedures.
• Ability to alert line manager / team when direction, policies and strategies are adversely affecting users of services or the public
• Ability to time manage effectively and to work under pressure and to prioritise a clinical workload
• Positive problem solving approach
• Ability to critically evaluate and review developments made by others to determine if and how they could be applied within own area of work, You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
  
  Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from the Care Quality Commission
Our family of over 4,000 members of staff provide health and social care for people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. Everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout, HPFT supports people with mental ill health, learning disabilities and autism across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and Essex. We employ around 4,500 people who deliver these services within the community and in inpatient settings. We also deliver a range of nationally commissioned specialist services including Tier 4 services for children and young people, perinatal services and medium and low secure learning disabilities services. We have operated as a NHS Foundation Trust since our authorisation in August 2007.