Welcome from our Chief Executive

Our organisation is expanding and we're looking for people with the right values, skills and/or potential to join us. We need people with energy, expertise, enthusiasm to help us provide the very best possible specialist NHS mental health and learning disability care. This involves helping us achieve our strategy to improve the quality of life for the communities we serve through People, Prevention and Partnerships.

So what can we offer you in return?

We're an organisation which puts people first. We'll do everything possible to help you feel respected, valued and included. We'll help you learn, acquire new skills and gain further experience to support your career development. And we'll provide the opportunity for you to bring your fresh ideas to work about how we can do things differently and continue improving.

You will also be joining a health and care system committed to working together to do the best we can for the communities we serve. Above all, at Sussex Partnership you'll have the chance to make a difference to the lives of the patients, carers and families across our communities.

If you like the sound of that, then come and join our team.

Job overview

An exciting opportunity has arisen to recruit a Band 8a senior practitioner psychologist to work as part of the developing Child & Young People's Enhanced Support Service (CYPRESS), covering West Sussex. The post is for 4 days a week (0.8 WTE), with options to work flexibly across the week.

We are a multi-disciplinary team (including clinical psychology, speech & language therapy, occupational therapy, nursing and positive behaviour support) that provides support to families who have a child with a learning disability, who is presenting with behaviours that challenge.

Our service fits with the trusts wider goal of developing services to meet the Transforming Care Agenda, as part of the Learning Disability and Autism programme. As a service we encourage innovative and creative practice and there will be many opportunities to get involved with service developments.

The post holder will be part of a dynamic and supportive multi-disciplinary team and will join a service with good opportunities for peer support and CPD. We adopt a multi-agency approach to supporting clients and have close links with our CAMHS colleagues, social care, education, residential services and the third sector.

Main duties of the job

As a senior practitioner psychologist your role will be varied, but there will be a focus on multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working. Clinical work is focussed on providing consultation to the networks supporting young people with complex challenging behaviour, completing specialist assessments with young people and their families/ support networks and developing positive behaviour support plans.

To protect the health and safety of our staff/workers, patients, and those attending our sites, we encourage our workforce to get fully vaccinated against COVID

Working for our organisation

Sussex Partnership provides mental health and learning disability care for all age groups across Sussex and for children and young people in Hampshire.

We encourage flexible working. We know that a positive work/ life balance brings about huge health-related benefits, which has a positive impact on the care we provide. Please speak to us about flexible working, for example, home-working, part time hours, flexible start/ finish times or anything else. If it works for you and works for the role, we'll do our best to make it happen.

We'd love you to join our Trust, rated 'good' overall and 'outstanding' for caring by the CQC. Our staff agree, in our recent staff survey 82% told us that they recognise that care for patients is our top priority.

Other key survey results:

• 70% highlighting flexible working as a key point for satisfaction at work
• 79% reporting feeling able to make suggestions to improve the work in their team
• 77% identifying opportunities to show initiative in their roles

CYPRESS: We are a relatively new service commissioned as part of the Learning Disability and Autism Programme. We have close relationships with our commissioners and aim to work alongside our social care, residential and education colleagues, to ensure holistic support is offered in a joined-up way.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
You will have a role in ensuring support plans are holistic and address all social, emotional and psychological needs of the young people we are supporting (including trauma, attachment, mental health). You will also support the team to consider wider systemic and organisational issues impacting on the young person, their family and their support networks. We are interested in a commitment to finding interesting and creative ways to facilitate psychological thinking and practice across the teams and the wider health/social care community through consultation, supervision, shared understanding and learning.

As a service we encourage innovative and creative practice and there will be many opportunities to get involved with service developments. You will be part of a dynamic and supportive multi-disciplinary team and will join a service with good opportunities for peer support and CPD.

We are currently working using a blended approach, working from home, at our office in Worthing and visiting family homes and schools. The service covers the whole of West Sussex and you will be expected to travel in order to meet the requirements of the post, so means of independent travel is essential.

Person specification

Qualifications
Essential criteria

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in applied psychology [or its equivalent for those trained before 1996 or outside the UK*] as approved by the HCPC, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology
• For forensic psychologists working in forensic settings: Masters degree (with the award of the British Psychological Society qualification in forensic psychology or equivalent)
• Professionally registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with the Health Professions Council (HCPC).

Knowledge/Experience
Essential criteria

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient setting
• Demonstrate specialist experience gained postqualification of working as an applied psychologist with evidence of having received a substantial amount of clinical supervision (normally in the region of approximately 50 hours)
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework
• Experience of representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care
• Experience or demonstrable knowledge of working with the particular client group served by the team/service.
• Knowledge of guidance and legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Sussex Partnership NHS FT is committed to supporting a diverse workforce that reflects our communities. Our workforce is currently under-represented from Black and Minority, Ethnic and disabled communities and we would welcome applications from these communities.

We regret that we are unable to advise candidates if they have not been shortlisted. If you have not heard from us within three weeks of the closing date please assume that you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.

In the event of an excessive number of applicants the Trust reserves the right to close this vacancy earlier than indicated.

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust takes its responsibilities for the safeguarding and protection of children and young people and vulnerable adults very seriously and expects this of all its employees and bank workers. The Trust works with adult and children's social care to ensure that the integrated service has systems in place to equip staff and bank workers with the knowledge and skills to recognize abuse, and take action to safeguard and protect vulnerable adults and children and young people. It is expected that all staff and bank workers familiarise themselves with the appropriate structures and policies and with the Sussex child protection and safeguarding procedures and the Sussex multi-agency policy and procedures for safeguarding vulnerable adults and undertake the relevant essential training and further training appropriate to their role.

Successful candidates are normally offered salaries at the bottom of the relevant salary range. However, where previous or equivalent NHS experience in a similar role can be demonstrated and evidenced, this may be taken into consideration when setting the starting salary.