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

We are delighted to be advertising for a dynamic and hard-working Assistant Psychologist to join the Eastbourne secondary care Adult Mental Health Assessment & Treatment Service (ATS). This is a newly created post, working 9am-5pm, four days a week. The ATS is a friendly, supportive multi-disciplinary team that delivers specialist care and clinical interventions to adults with severe and enduring mental health difficulties. This post provides an excellent opportunity for someone to gain experience of thinking and working psychologically with complex mental health presentations. There will also be opportunities to contribute to the Specialist Older Adult Mental Health Service (SOAMHS) based within the same building. In East Sussex, we have a good record of developing Assistant Psychologists, so that they have gone onto gain places for Clinical Psychology training.

Main duties of the job

The successful applicant will need to negotiate working within a busy team environment, where there is always high demand for Psychology. We are keen to improve access to psychological therapies and groups. We are looking for candidates who have prior experience of working within Adult Mental Health and we would like to hear from those who already have some experience of delivering psychological interventions on either a group or individual basis. Good audit and evaluation skills are essential, together with knowledge about the application of client outcome measures and feedback tools and how they inform service change. The successful applicant will therefore have excellent IT skills, be proficient in the use of Excel, Power Point, and data analysis and presentation. We are also looking for someone who is well organised, able to prioritise in the event of competing demands, a good time keeper, and able to work using their own initiative, but know when to ask for help.

The post will involve facilitating psychology groups and individual work with service users and there may be opportunities to assist with cognitive assessments. This work will support the on-going care planning for service users and their families by the wider team. You will be involved in audits and projects to improve the quality of the care that the team provides. As such, you would be expected to assist with staff development and training initiatives.

Working for our organisation

We are a trust with a 2020 vision of achieving outstanding care and treatment you can be confident in. We have a vision that includes becoming the employer of choice and our values and behaviours guide how we do this.

This makes for a varied and exciting opportunity and there are good opportunities for learning and development. In this post, you would be working primarily from the Eastbourne site, a car is not essential as Eastbourne has good transport links and is easily accessible by rail.

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

Detailed job description and main responsibilities
To support and enhance professional psychological practice within the service. Providing support, co-ordination and administration to clinical, training and research functions within the scope appropriate to level of training and competence, and to undertaking related tasks to enhance assessment, intervention and evaluation within the team or care group. To work independently according to a plan agreed and reviewed through regular supervision by a qualified applied HPC registered Psychologist.

For further details please see attached job description.

Person specification

Qualifications
Essential criteria

• Honours degree at 2:2 or above in Psychology, or equivalent. Eligible for Graduate Basis for Chartership with the BPS

Knowledge/Experience
Essential criteria

• Relevant clinical and research skills
• Experience of working as part of a team
• Basic knowledge of databases, research skills and methodology
• Ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to a health context
• An understanding of psychology applied to health care

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.