Senior Clinical/Counselling Older Adults Psychologist 7-8a

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Joining #TeamNELFT means you'll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We're CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an innovative and flexible psychologist to join our Older Adult psychology provision in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham. This is a band 7 to 8a development post: the post holder will initially start at band 7 with the opportunity to progress to band 8a within the role. Applications from newly qualified psychologists are welcome.

The post holder will join a group of passionate psychologists who value diversity and inclusion. We are firm believers in the importance of co-designing and co-delivering with experts by experience, carers, peer workers and partnering with third sector organisations. We have a range of specialist interests, and experience in delivering a range of specialist assessments, therapies and consultation.

We believe in the importance of richness in delivering secondary care services to effectively meet the needs of the population we serve, therefore integrated working with the multi-disciplinary Older Adult and Mental Health and Wellness Teams is essential. The successful candidate will be joining the borough at an exciting time of transformation where they'll have the opportunity to contribute to shaping meaningful services for those it is set up to serve.

Main duties of the job
• Conducting high quality psychological assessments, treatments, and systematic outcome measurements for service users under the care of the Older Adult.
• Providing specialist consultation on complex cases presenting with significant distress associated with cognitive impairment, anxiety, mood disorders, and enduring difficulties.
• Working in close collaboration with other psychology services to ensure a smooth pathway for service-users and their families, under the direction of the Psychological Professional Leads.
• Ensuring that a high quality, timely, accessible and evidence-based psychological service is available to all service users who need it, under the direction of the Psychological Professional Leads.

Working for our organisation

Our Values 2025 - 2030

Working with our colleagues, patients and carers we have co-produced three new values that we aim to embed within our culture here at NELFT.

They are:

• We are kind.
• We are respectful.
• We work together with our communities.

These three values help us to strive to provide the best care by the best people.

Probationary Period

This post will be subject to a probationary period.

NELFT place great importance on new starters being properly welcomed and inducted into the Trust. All new starters will join the Trust on the first Monday of each month and undertake a comprehensive induction of up to two weeks, including mandatory training, systems training and the allocation of equipment. As part of the process new starters will have the opportunity to also meet the executive team, senior managers and attend a number of drop in sessions focussing in engagement, health and wellbeing and key processes. The induction will be held at our head office in Rainham, Essex.

High Cost Area Supplement - Outer London

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 15% of the basic salary (with a minimum of £4,313 to a maximum of £5,436 p.a. pro rata for part time).

High Cost Area Supplement - Fringe

This post also attracts payment for High Cost Area Supplement of 5% of the basic salary (with a minimum of £1,192 to a maximum of £2,011 p.a. pro rata for part time).

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Please see attached job description and person specification for more details about the role, including main responsibilities.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Doctoral level qualification in Clinical or Counselling Psychology
• Professional registration with the appropriate body (HCPC)
• Additional specialist post-graduate training relevant to this population

Experience

Essential criteria

• Experience of working with high levels of risk and severe mental health difficulties
• Experience of applying NICE compliant therapies relevant to the target population (working age and older adults accessing secondary care mental health services, including those with physical health conditions and cognitive impairment)
• Experience of providing specialist psychological assessment (including neuropsychological assessment), formulation and treatment to adults and older adults within a range of mental healthcare settings

Skills

Essential criteria

• Highly developed skills in the engagement and delivery of therapy to clients presenting with complex difficulties and their families.
• An ability to work autonomously, setting appropriate goals, in accordance with professional ethics guidelines and Trust policies
• An ability to communicate complex and difficult information with sensitivity, empathy and reassurance
• To have a wide range of analytical and judgemental skills in order to ensure complex conditions and situations can be managed appropriately

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

• A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
• A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our effortsto support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a 'Top 10 Family Friendly Employer' from the Working Families Charity.
• Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
• Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that's a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans. reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email recruitment@nelft.nhs.uk.

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

As part of our recruitment process, we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

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.

Documents to download

• 7to8a OA Clin/Couns Psychologist JD/PS (PDF, 471.4KB)
• NELFT Application - Hints and Tips (PDF, 38.4KB)