Band 8a Practitioner Psychologist - Swindon

Come and join our Psychological Therapies Service (PTS), working with older people in Swindon, across our two Later Life in-patient wards. This role has arisen from some specific investment to support the development of the provision of psychological interventions across our in-patient wards and acute services. You will work closely with the Later Life Lead, and the Divisional Lead for Psychological Professions in acute services, as well as other psychological professionals providing input across our acute pathway (including the Later Life and Adults of Working Age wards, and the Intensive Service). You will be joining a supportive team, at an exciting time of change and transformation within our services.
You will be providing specialist psychological input to our 12 bedded functional ward (Hodson) and our 12 bedded organic ward (Liddington), working alongside experienced Art and Music Therapists, and Studio Assistants, and the wider MDT. The role will provide opportunities to work with older people with a wide range of presentations, including complex mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, and physical and neurological comorbidities., The Victoria Centre is a thriving purpose-built centre where community teams and two inpatient units for older people are based. The role involves providing specialist psychological input to the functional (Hodson) and organic (Liddington) wards.
This is a varied role with the opportunity to make a significant contribution to improve the access to evidence based psychological interventions for Later Life in-patients. The successful applicant will be highly-motivated to provide a high quality, evidence-based psychological service and will have experience of working with individuals with complex psychological difficulties.
Both our ward teams have dedicated multidisciplinary clinicians, with opportunities for consultation and training alongside the direct clinical work, in the form of specialist psychological assessment, formulation, and intervention. The provision of reflective practice, and team formulation will be a key part of this role. You will also have the opportunity to join the Locality Staff Support Debrief service., Swindon Psychological Therapies Service (PTS) comprises a supportive team of Clinical Psychologists, Counselling Psychologists, CBT Therapists, a Family Therapist and Arts Psychotherapists. The Later Life branch of Swindon PTS is a small, dedicated and friendly team including a Psychology Lead for Later Life, Art Therapist, Music Therapist, Studio Assistant and two trainee Counselling Psychologists. All share a passion for providing high quality, compassionate care.
We have established links with local training providers in Clinical and Counselling Psychology. All PTS staff have access to regular activities to support their ongoing professional development, including a bi-monthly CPD Club. We regularly host placements for undergraduate psychology students, Clinical and Counselling Psychology trainees and trainees in art and music therapy.
The team has a strong emphasis on promoting staff wellbeing, including a bi-monthly reflective practice group and monthly wellbeing newsletter.

The successful applicant will be enthusiastic and highly motivated to provide a good quality, evidence based psychological service within a changing and challenging environment. They will have experience of working with individuals with complex psychological difficulties and risk issues within secondary care, and a particular interest in working with Later Life service users in acute distress. They will enjoy working as part of a team and thrive on working under pressure.

Working for our organisation
We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust): a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.
We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.
Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.
At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.