Assistant Psychologist

The role plays a key part in supporting the psychology provision on the female medium secure forensic ward, and specifically within Spring Ward. Responsibilities include:

The postholder will support and enhance the professional psychological care of clients within the womens forensic medium secure service on Spring Ward, River House, at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. The postholder will assist the ward practitioner psychologist, in the delivery of a specialist applied psychology service, including the provision of clinical work as required by the service, under the direct guidance, close clinical and professional supervision of a practitioner psychologist. Clinical work is likely to involve carrying out psychological assessments, including risk assessments, and circumscribed individual interventions, under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist. The postholder will support and facilitate the provision of psychoeducational groups, assist in clinically related administration, the conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, teaching and project work.

More generally, the postholder will assist the psychologist and other members of the multidisciplinary team in developing a therapeutic environment for patients in the forensic medium secure service. The postholder will work following clinical guidelines and the policies and procedures of the service, according to a plan agreed with a qualified psychologist and within the overall framework of the team's policies and procedures.

KR 1 Clinical and Client Care

To provide psychological assessments for clients in the medium secure service under the close supervision of a practitioner psychologist including Psychometric Assessments, Risk Assessments, Behavioural Assessments, Needs Assessments.

To provide protocol-based individual psychological interventions for clients in the medium secure service.

To arrange, schedule, and provide protocol-based group psychological interventions for clients in the medium secure service.

To assist the psychologists in the development of individual or group clinical materials or training materials.

KR 2 Contributing to team or service clinical functioning

To contribute to the effective working of in the medium secure service by contributing to the training and support of other staff in developing and providing psychological care of clients.

To act in a manner that supports a psychologically informed framework for the service.

To participate in the team or services delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse local communities.

To be primarily ward- based to support with the 24/7 therapeutic model on Spring Ward, contributing to 1:1s with clients to meet their psychological needs.

KR 3 Policy and service development

To follow policies and procedures in own area of work

To participate in the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and delivering services which meet the needs of local communities.

KR 4 Care or management of resources

To take care of, and use carefully, the Trusts equipment and physical resources.

To ensure that the postholder has sufficient resources by estimating future needs and requesting supplies as needed.

To be responsible for the safekeeping of equipment or stock provided to the post holder and informing the supervising psychologist or manager when stock requires replenishing (may apply to psychometric tests, specialised stationery etc.).

KR 5 Teaching and Training

To participate in demonstrating work methods to newly recruited Assistant Psychologists and to support their development of necessary skills.

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations or published articles.

KR 6 Record-keeping and Information Governance

To ensure that all information generated by own work is recorded as required by Trust policies and local procedures.

Under the supervision of the practitioner psychologist to maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry.

To maintain databases and enter data and perform analyses and produce reports.

KR 7 Research and development

To assist in the design and implementation of audit and research projects to inform the service and others in the development of Trust psychology, psychotherapy and other services, training provision and research activities.

To undertake data collection, analysis, the production of reports and summaries, using IT and statistical programmes.

The inpatient provision is part of the South London & Maudsley Forensic & Offender Health Pathway within the Croydon and Behavioural & Developmental Psychiatry Operational Directorate.

The three forensic services of SLaM, South West London and St George's (SWLSTG), and Oxleas together comprise the South London Mental Health and Community Partnership (SLP). The SLP's overarching goals centre on bringing care closer to home, improving patient pathways and outcomes by delivering excellent care in better environments. The SLP has a track record of delivering highly effective, clinically informed service developments in order to better meet the needs of service-users. Spring Ward is an integral part of the SLP and there are close links between the MSU and LSU in the pathway, in addition to supported community residential placements, community forensic mental health teams, other mental health services, prisons, and criminal justice agencies.

The ward has a multi-professional team that includes dedicated qualified and assistant psychology provision. The post-holder will be aligned for direct clinical service provision to the ward team and will join a wider forensic clinical psychology & psychotherapy team that provides inpatient and community-based interventions.

Qualifications

Experience

Knowledge

Skills

Abilities