Assistant Psychologist

JOB DESCRIPTION

1. JOB DETAILS

Job Title: Assistant Psychologist

Department: Clinical

Status: Permanent

Hours: 37.5, Monday to Friday

Reporting to: Research Lead

2. OVERALL PURPOSE

 Combat Stress is the leading provider of mental health services to British veterans. Our focus is on providing specialist treatments that meet the specific mental health needs of veterans across our three treatment centres and community outreach teams

 The key role of the post holder will be to assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits and service evaluations, collection of statistics, development of research projects and other project work as the organisation moves to increasingly sophisticated models of evaluating its services and reporting on outcomes.

 The Assistant Psychologist will also be required to support and enhance the psychological care of clients; providing psychological assessment and psychological interventions under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, attending team meetings as appropriate, working independently according to a plan agreed with a qualified Psychologist and other staff of the treatment centre within the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures.  The post holder will be expected to work closely with the senior Psychologists from the service and more senior staff to contribute to the development and enhancement of the treatment programmes.

3. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Clinical  To assist in the assessment of service users, undertaking protocol based psychological assessments using psychometric tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews as appropriate

 To assist in the formulation and delivery of psychological interventions and care plans, under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist

 To assist in the coordination and running of therapeutic groups as required

 To work with other staff of the multiprofessional team in the assessment and care provided to service users

 To attend and contribute to relevant multiprofessional meetings

Research, audit and service evaluation  To assist in the design and implementation of research, audit and service development projects within the service as required

 To undertake data collection, analysis, the production of reports and summaries, using databases and statistical programmes as required

 To ensure outcome monitoring systems are comprehensive and adhered to and to contribute to the development of a framework for audit and research within the treatment centre

 To ensure the effective management of information systems are in place in order that key outcome measures and performance indicators, and contracted activity is reported as required

2  To assist, as needed, with the development of reports for stakeholders

General  To receive regular supervision for all clinical work with veterans and their relatives and carers in accordance with the service policies of Combat Stress and professional practice guidelines

 To participate in an agreed programme of training and professional development in order to develop clinical knowledge and practice relevant to the delivery of current duties

 To support the senior Psychologist in internal and external staff and service development activities as appropriate

 To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues of relevance to veterans and Combat Stress

 To undertake such other duties and responsibilities, appropriate to the grade of the post, as may be agreed with the senior psychologist.

Governance

 To ensure that the statutory mental health (including safeguarding and vulnerable adult) responsibilities of Combat Stress are carried out

 To work with the Senior Psychologist to support efforts to ensure that clinical governance structures are adhered to within the multi-disciplinary team

1. KEY RELATIONSHIPS

 Head of Research

 Manager of Psychological Therapies

 Treatment Centre Manager

 Multi-disciplinary Team

 Community Outreach Teams

 Veterans Mental Health Providers

3  Service User Groups

4. RISK MANAGEMENT

As an employee of the Society you are required to be risk aware, readily able to identify risks faced by you and by the Society in the course of your day-to-day employment. Where a new risk is identified it is to be reported through your line manager.

We reserve the right to ask you from time to time to undertake any other reasonable duties as required within this role.

Signature – Job Holder Date

Signature – Head of Research Date

Reviewed/created: August 2015 Next review date: August 2016