Clinical Psychologist - Day Unit

We have an exciting opportunity for a Clinical Psychologist to Join our Intensive Support Team (IST) based at East Lancashire Child and Adolescent Service (ELCAS), Burnley General Hospital. The IST is unique and specialist day unit service, with an innovative and dynamic team, that provides essential mental health and educational support to enhance the social and psychological development of young people who are experiencing complex mental health difficulties.

The multi-disciplinary team (MDT) is led by a Consultant Child Psychiatrist and includes mental health practitioners, support practitioners, art psychotherapists, social workers and education staff. Young people referred to the IST often require specialist assessments and on-going interventions on a more frequent basis than community based CAMHS teams can provide.

We are looking for an enthusiastic, hardworking individual, who has excellent relational and interpersonal skills and a genuine commitment to working with this client group. You will be responsible for ensuring that you achieve the key objectives of delivering safe, personal and effective Emotional Health and Well Being for this specialist group of children and young people. This post will also provide input into the the ELCAS community team.

Your role would be to work as a specialist member of the clinical team, to assist in providing the highest quality clinical care, assessment, formulation and treatment for young people, their families and/or carers. This will involve managing a caseload of complex young people with a variety of emotional and mental health difficulties up to the age of 18. In addition to holding a clinical caseload, you will work with closely with other team members to provide a psychological perspective to understanding the needs of the young people. A large part of the role will also include providing consultation, supervision and staff training to other team members.

Supervision requirements are acknowledged and supported by East Lancashire Hospitals Trust and these will be negotiated with the successful candidate in order to meet local and professional need.

The role involves travel between sites, so access to private transport for work purposes is essential. Due to current circumstances the role may combine home working as well as working in community/hospital settings.

This post is advertised as a band 8a but we would also welcome newly qualified applicants with whom we would offer a preceptorship, starting at a band 7 but with targets to progress to an 8a within 2 years.

East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust is a large and integrated healthcare organisation, with a vision to be widely recognised for delivering safe, personal and effective care.

ELCAS, part of the Division of Family Care, is a specialist provider of mental health services for Children, Young People and their Families/Carers and is rated Outstanding by the CQC. At ELCAS our vision is to be a recognised centre of excellence that exceeds people’s expectations. As well as rated Outstanding by the CQC, we are also accredited by the Quality Network for Community CAMHS, part of the Royal College of Psychiatry Centre for Quality Improvement.

At ELCAS, we value supervision and CPD and regularly have training opportunities in line with our service transformation plan, especially around supervision and evidence-based interventions. We are proud of our close relationships we have with other departments within the Trust. In addition to this, we have links with local Universities, including Manchester, UCLAN, Edge Hill and we take trainees from the Manchester and Lancaster Clinical Psychology Training Courses.

ELCAS also has a strong track record of support for staff and for staff development. We want to support you in developing your career in children, young people and young adults’ mental health, and give you the opportunity to drive your ideas forward, having a positive impact on the lives of children and young people.

To provide a qualified specialist clinical psychology service to children, young people and their families, who access specialist children’s mental health services.

To provide specialist psychological assessment, formulation and psychological therapy. The emphasis is on delivering a high quality community oriented service, using evidence based practice

To offer advice and consultation to non-psychological colleagues and to other non-professional carers where psychological intervention is a key aspect of treatment programmes.

To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures.

To utilise research skills for audit policy and service development within the area served by the service.