*Must hold experience working in children's residential settings/working with complex young people in complex settings and have experience delivering supervision/line management to clinical staff*
We are open to considering Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologists (Band 8A) or Principal Psychologists (Band 8B) for a role with us
About Meadows Care:
Meadows Care is a specialist therapeutic children's residential care provider dedicated to transforming the lives of children and young people who have experienced significant trauma, adversity and disrupted relationships. We believe that healing happens through relationships, and our homes are built on the principles of safety, belonging, compassion and high aspiration. Our therapeutic model is fully integrated into everyday residential care, ensuring that every interaction provides an opportunity to support recovery, resilience and growth. Through close collaboration between residential staff, therapists, education and the wider professional network, we create nurturing environments where children can develop secure relationships, build emotional resilience and achieve positive long-term outcomes. We are committed to continually developing innovative, evidence-informed services that place children at the centre of everything we do.
JOB PURPOSE
We are looking for a psychologist with excellent clinical skills, a committed team focus, with ideally some experience of strategic change and service development. We are a fast paced, evolving organisation so the successful applicant will be able to adapt to change, innovate and be creative in offering solutions and services to support children and young people.
Highly Specialist role (8A)
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- To provide psychological assessment, formulation and therapeutic interventions for children and young people
- Where appropriate, to provide cognitive assessments (e.g. WISC-IV) being undertaken in the service
- To work as MPS Consultant delivering a variety of psychologically informed support to a variety of sectors and settings including education settings, residential homes, local authorities. You will be providing psychological support, reflective practice, training, formulation and guidance around the needs of children and young people and at times overseeing and coordinating the therapeutic care of the children and young people within different settings.
- To hold an appropriate caseload of psychological support
- To attend professionals’ meetings/proceedings as required (e.g. statutory reviews, educational reviews, network/strategy meetings etc.); to present assessments and provide a review of work completed to inform care.
- To produce comprehensive psychological assessment reports with recommendations to inform therapeutic care plans and interventions going forwards for children and young people we support. Providing further update reports and progress reports as required.
- To regularly liaise with relevant professionals regarding assessment, therapeutic interventions and care being provided to children and young people, subject to professional boundaries of confidentiality.
- To liaise and consult with outside agencies as appropriate for the purposes of assessment and ongoing therapeutic care (e.g. social care, health and education services, families).
- To work other members of therapy services and senior managers to support the development of the service, offering creative ways to develop and inform our offer
- To provide professional opinion, consultation and develop therapy proposals for potential commissioners
- To travel within a reasonable distance to complete specific pieces of work or assessment
- To provide relevant training to staff, as required, both to the service as a whole and to specific staff teams.
- To be involved in recruitment and induction of new staff, as appropriate.
- To undertake any Continued Professional Development activities as are required to maintain and enhance clinical skills necessary for the delivery of high-quality psychological care.
- To receive Clinical Supervision from an appropriate professional in accordance with the HCPC requirements (or equivalent).
- To provide Clinical Supervision to therapy support roles
- To be knowledgeable of and to work within the parameters of our policies and procedures. To gain an understanding of Ofsted requirements, Quality Standards for Children’s Homes and other legislation relevant to the role.
- To be aware of the nature of working within the independent sector, working for a non-statutory organisation and the different challenges and dilemmas that this can entail.
- To work autonomously in Meadows Psychology Service across potentially multiple contracts, managing your time and workload
Principal role (8B)
As part of the leadership team of MPS, the post holder will support the development, delivery and evaluation of psychological interventions as well as provide consultation, supervision, formulation and training to the multi-disciplinary clinical team, as appropriate. The post holder will provide a high-quality expert psychology service as a member of MPS.
You will also support the clinicians and psychologists within the service and contribute to the expansion of our psychology offer, including clinical psychologists, trainee clinical psychologists, forensic psychologists, clinical associate psychologists and assistant psychologists.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Senior role supporting the expansion of psychology services across the country
- Delivery of a highly specialist clinical psychology service to the systems that support children and young people who have experienced developmental and relational trauma
- Providing highly specialist psychological assessments based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with CYP, carers and others involved in the care of CYP
- To oversee and support robust outcomes monitoring and service evaluation
- To be responsible for implementing a range of highly specialist psychological interventions for children, young people and systems that support them
- To make highly skilled evaluations and decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group
- To offer complex case consultation to other cliicians
- To offer oversight and senior leadership support to our commissioner services embedding trauma informed models of care
- To work with our commissioners to ensure excellence in delivery
- To identify opportunities for MPS delivery
- To ensure the smooth running of MPS work as appropriate including attending contract reviews and developing relationships with commissioners of our service
- To attend professionals’ meetings/proceedings as required
- To provide regular reports to the senior leadership team
- To provide professional opinion, consultation and develop therapy proposals for potential commissioners
- To travel within a reasonable distance to complete specific pieces of work or assessment
- To provide relevant training to staff, as required, both to the service as a whole and to specific staff teams.
- To be involved in recruitment and induction of new staff, as appropriate.
- To undertake any Continued Professional Development activities as are required to maintain and enhance clinical skills necessary for the delivery of high-quality psychological care.
- To receive Clinical Supervision from an appropriate professional in accordance with the HCPC requirements (or equivalent).
- To provide Clinical Supervision to MPS therapists where appropriate
- To work autonomously in Meadows Psychology Service, managing your time and workload
- To provide specialist psychological assessments
- To provide expertise and specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to the analysis of clients’ problems to ensure accurate formulations, reflecting an in-depth causal understanding, diagnosis and intervention plan
- To ensure that all members of the wider clinical team have access to a psychologically based framework for the understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological knowledge, research and theory.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for relevant individual clients and to provide both general and specialist consultation and advice for other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management
- To ensure appropriate systems for the clinical and professional supervision of qualified and unqualified psychologists, and other therapeutic clinicians across the designated service area
- To provide clinical and professional supervision to qualified and assistant psychologists working in the service.
- To co-ordinate and provide specialist clinical placements for trainee clinical psychologists, ensuring that they acquire the necessary clinical and research skills to doctoral level
- To provide specialist advice, consultation, training and clinical supervision/assessment to other members of the team for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve clients’ functioning.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
Essential Criteria
1. Live registration (or eligible for immediate registration) with the appropriate professional governing body (e.g. HCPC).
2. Appropriate and accredited training as appropriate for the profession.
3. Experience of working with systems who support children and young people with complex presentations
4. Training or experience in therapeutic models or approaches relevant for children and young people
5. Experience of service development is desirable
6. Experience of working within independent sector is desirable
7. Supervisor training for doctoral programme clinical psychology trainees
8. Experience of developing relationships with multiple partners across different sectors including social care, education, private and third sector
9. Ability to apply knowledge of psychological theories to health and social care.
10. Advanced oral and written communication skills including the ability to communicate complex concepts, formulations and sensitive information
11. Ability to disseminate assessment findings to a range of audiences
12. Excellent organisational and time management skills and ability to work autonomously to manage the competing demands of the role.
13. Ability to work flexibly and responsively to new situations and be able to shift and manage competing priorities
14. Ability to contribute to professional meetings
15. Skills in reflecting upon and evaluating their own practice and measuring outcomes
16. Candidate must have a valid driving licence and have access to a vehicle for transport.
17. Post doctoral training in one or more specialist areas of practice is desirable
18. Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multimedia materials for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
19. Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and challenging behaviours
This is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities, and the post holder may be required to undertake other duties following discussion with the appropriate manager or Directors. This job description may be reviewed and revised in line with the needs and development of therapy services.
Please contact Jessica Pyke, People and Partnerships Manager on [email protected] for more information
Pay: £57,500.00-£77,350.00 per year
Work Location: In person
