Principal Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Band 8b Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist or Psychotherapist - Southwark Assertive Outreach and Rehabilitation Teams (AORT)

Lead Clinical/Counselling Psychologist for three AORT branches, including one Assertive Outreach Team and two Community Rehabilitation Teams.

The three branches provide enhanced support for people with a severe and enduring mental health problem, either due to their needs not being met within a traditional community team or because the service user has been placed within a block-funded rehabilitation placement within the borough. A range of psychological therapies are offered by the psychology and psychotherapy team within AORT and although NICE guidelines constitute the core offer (e.g., CBT for psychosis, Family Interventions for service users with a schizophrenia-spectrum diagnosis), flexibility, creativity and practice-based evidence is supported. This includes psychodynamic psychotherapy, narrative practices and Open Dialogue.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will provide operational leadership to the psychology and psychotherapy team within AORT. In addition to operating as the lead for psychology and psychotherapy, the postholder will also hold a leadership and consultation role across the wider AORT multi-disciplinary teams.

They will provide highly specialist direct and indirect psychological input within all three AORT branches. Direct work will include individual, family/network and group work. Of particular note, is the current need within the service for directly providing and/or supervising the administration, interpretation and feeding back of cognitive assessments, which the postholder will lead on within the service.

Each AORT branch has team formulation meetings underpinned by the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF), which is a key part of the strategy to embed trauma informed care within the teams. The postholder will be expected to support and lead on this ambition within AORT. To supplement individual supervision received from the interim psychosis pathway lead for psychology and psychotherapy, the postholder will join a monthly supervision group facilitated by Dr Lucy Johnstone (one of the PTMF authors) that has been commissioned until at least March 2025. They will also have the opportunity to take advantage of other supervision groups and/or special interest groups within the Southwark directorate and/or wider Trust.

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusthas a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good'.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone's potential as change makers.

The Trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.