Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Direct clinical:   

• 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 and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s 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 settings.
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
• To evaluate and make 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 exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically-based care plans.
• To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan. 
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically-based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

Indirect clinical:

• To support probation practitioners in screening caseloads managed by PSL using the recognised OPD screening tool.
• To monitor referrals to treatment interventions and third sector organisations and report back monthly to the quadrant lead.
• To monitor attendance and adherence to local CORE PD training and report to LPP workforce development team.
• To provide both individual and group consultation to probation officers and other members of multidisciplinary team contributing directly to the formulation of clients risk management plans, including advice on psychological aspects of risk assessment, personality difficulties and risk management, across outpatient and community settings.
• To provide specialised Offender Personality Disorder training to all PSL staff, Approved Premises (AP) staff and allied agencies (e.g. police), including the National Core PD Pathway modules; KUF Basic Awareness Training and Women’s KUF training.
• Provide a psychological perspective and a specialist psychologically-based framework for understanding clinical care, service/team dynamics, or service/team organisational systems in various teams and groups of which the psychologist is a member, to benefit the clients served by the service/team.
• Develop and maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to forensic and general mental health services and the criminal justice system.
• Develop and maintain knowledge of local resources and relationships with relevant statutory, voluntary and community groups and organisations.

Teaching, training and supervision:

• To receive regular clinical professional supervision from a senior psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues, as well as line management from the identified line manager.
• To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of clinical psychology over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post-holder is employed.
• To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision and to provide supervision to other MDT staff’s psychological work, as appropriate.
• To provide professional and clinical supervision of assistant/graduate psychology staff and, as appropriate, to contribute to the supervision of individual cases for trainee clinical psychologists.

Management, recruitment and service development:

• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
• To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
• To help manage the workloads of assistant psychologists, within the framework of the team/service’s policies and procedures.
• To be involved, as appropriate, in the shortlisting and interviewing of assistant psychologists/graduate psychology staff.
• To be involved in service development projects as agreed by the professional lead. 

IT responsibilities:

• To be proficient in the use of IT for email, intranet and clinical record purposes. To be familiar with word processing, database and statistical packages, and to use such packages for complex data analysis as necessary. To use appropriate computer software to develop and create clinical or other service-related reports or documents.
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of practice of the British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.

Research and service evaluation:

• To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members. 
• To undertake research as appropriate within the service, Directorate or multi-centred research across Trusts and to supervise research and audit projects.
• To initiate, implement and contribute to the evaluation, monitoring and development of the service, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service, to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.
• To contribute to the evaluation, monitoring and development of the multi-disciplinary team.
• To contribute to the development, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of the Directorate’s and Trust’s operational policies and services.