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NELFT NHS Foundation Trust

About

NELFT NHS Foundation Trust provides mental health and community services for over 4.9 million people living in the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham, Havering, and across Essex and Kent.

We work to ensure our patients, their friends and family, feel confident that their health needs are well met. With an excellent reputation for research and development, our skilled health professionals are at the cutting edge of evidence-based innovation, opening up the possibilities for better ways of working and delivery of care.

Contact

Address: Trust Head Office; West Wing; CEME Centre; Marsh Way; Rainham; Essex; RM13 8GQ
Contact Number: 0300 300 1530

Find out more

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Open

Ref: 395-PP072-25 Vacancy ID: 7234542

Clinical Associate In Psychology (CAP)

Accepting applications until: 01-Aug-2025 23:59

Vacancy status: Open

Accepting applications until: 01-Aug-2025 23:59

Location

Site: Petersfield Centre
Address: Petersfield Avenue
Town: Romford
Postcode: RM3 9PB
Major / Minor Region: London

Contract type & working pattern

Contract

Fixed term: 6 months (N/A)

Hours

Full time
Job share
Flexible working

37.5 hours per week

Salary

Salary: £38,682 - £46,580 per annum (Plus HCAS)
Salary period: Yearly
Grade: (NHS AfC: Band 6)

Specialty

Main area: Psychology

Interview date: 04/08/2025

Joining #TeamNELFT means you’ll become part of a welcoming and supportive working environment. We’re CQC rated Good, and we want you to join us on the journey towards an Outstanding rating. NELFT has sites across North East London, Essex, Kent and Medway. We provide community and mental healthcare services to adults and children within these areas.

The Trust has award winning equality and diversity initiatives and staff health and wellbeing activities. We invest heavily in your development, because when you are valued and supported, we provide the best care to our patients. We are a Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, have been featured in the Working Families Top 10 Employers benchmark for three consecutive years, and we have achieved a Carers UK Level 1 Accreditation. Along with our staff networks and training opportunities, we work hard to embed a just and compassionate culture here at NELFT.

Find out more about NELFT careers and what makes our Trust a great place to work, in this video

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Clinical

• All clinical duties will be carried out under the supervision and direction of a qualified Practitioner Psychologist. The post-holder has a responsibility to perform all tasks within the spirit and the policies of the North East London NHS Foundation Trust.

• Use a range of psychological assessment methods within applied clinical practice to underpin formulation, including (but not limited to) clinical interviews, developmental history, semi-structured interview and psychometric measures.

• Carry out risk assessments in relation to psychological distress and to ensure that risk formulations are integrated with interventions understanding contingency management and the use of risk indicators in mitigating against crises.

• Critically appraise and integrate a range of psychological theories to produce a coherent formulation which informs an evidence based psychological treatment plan.

· Agree upon evidence based psychological interventions based on a clear psychological formulation of presenting issues in collaboration with service users and those supporting them.

· Communicate effectively the rationale behind the treatment plan to clients, those in their support networks and other professionals to support engagement.

• Provision of formulation-driven psychological interventions, under supervision of a Practitioner Psychologist, with individuals and groups with complex mental health issues within a variety of settings including clinics, community team bases and local community based facilities.

• Collaborative goal-setting and ongoing measurement of progress against these agreed goals.

• Act as a psychological resource providing support and guidance using psychological models to the wider health or social care teams, and social systems and networks.

• To hold in mind the impact of racism, social exclusion and stigma, arising from the experience of being a refugee or asylum seeker, having complex mental health issues, on engagement with services and effective psychological interventions, and to be able to creatively consider approaches to empower service users in their journey.

• Implement appropriate crisis interventions that are safe, effective and compassionate and follow a rights-based approach consistent with service standards.

• Apply psychological theory and research to address emotive and challenging situations, taking account of conflicting and contradictory information from carers and other professionals.

• To spend sustained amounts of time with service users whose behaviour may appear aggressive and hostile, who may have poor verbal communication skills and self-care and special physical and/or mental needs.

• To understand of the needs and assets of refugee and asylum seeking individuals and families from a wide range of racial, cultural, sexual, religious and social backgrounds. To join with service users and colleagues, co-produce innovative ways of communicating and working across language and cultural differences, including the use of professional interpreters in clinical work.

• To maintain clear and appropriate clinical records in a timely manner, including managing the use of electronic patient records, and clinical reports, letters and emails as required.

Although we are a registered sponsor organisation, we are unable to offer sponsorship for some job roles, and this will be identified through filtering questions at the start of any job application on the Trac recruitment system.

Benefits

We believe in bringing your authentic and best self to work, in order to deliver the best care to our patients. We are committed to supporting our employees holistically. Here is a snapshot of what is on offer at NELFT:

A long-standing and award-winning approach to equality and diversity with supportive networks for ethnic minority staff, staff with disabilities or long term/chronic conditions and LGBT staff.
A commitment to supporting colleagues to achieve a work life balance, through flexible working opportunities and our efforts to support our working parents and carers. This has resulted in us being recognised as a ‘Top 10 Family Friendly Employer’ from the Working Families Charity.
Proactive health and wellbeing support, including access to our employee assistance programme, staff psychological support, individual wellbeing conversations and a network of health and wellbeing ambassadors.
Detailed information about our wellbeing and benefits offer can be found in this link.

As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for us and for our patients, and for you. Speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement whether that’s a job share, part time hours or another flexible pattern.

Supporting our Armed Forces

We recognise the valuable contribution that the Armed Forces community make to our organisation. We have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and achieved Gold Award under the Armed Forces Employer Recognition Scheme. We have supportive policies, guaranteed interview schemes for veterans. reservists and military spouses and give additional leave to our Reservists so that they can attend their annual camp.

Equal opportunities employer

We are committed to equal opportunities and diversity and positively encourage applications from all sections of the community regardless of any protected characteristic.

We are a Disability Confident employer and have made the pledge to commit to employing more people with disabilities. If you require this application in another format i.e. Braille or audio tape please contact the recruitment team on 0300 300 1530 or email [email protected].

Correspondence with us

You are advised to regularly check your emails (including any junk mail/spam folders) for correspondence related to this post.

As part of our recruitment process, we may be required to share information you provide on the application form with NHS Counter Fraud Authority (NHSCFA) and/or other organisations for the purpose of the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of fraud or any other unlawful activity affecting the NHS. We also use third party providers to check and verify your qualifications who may be contacting you on our behalf to verify the same.

Applicant requirements

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential criteria

Undergraduate degree in psychology (with graduate basis for registration with BPS)
MCAP qualification from an accredited CAP training provider

Experience

Essential criteria

Experience of work in the NHS with adults with complex mental health needs.
Delivering evidence based psychological interventions with individuals and groups presenting with severe and/or complex mental health problems
Working in MDTs
Audit, evaluation or research.
Work in multi-cultural settings
Work with community, voluntary & social enterprise organisations.
Conducting service-related research

Desirable criteria

Work with behaviours that challenge services
Lived experience of mental health issues or psychological problems as a service user or carer
Work with community, voluntary & social enterprise organisations
Shown a commitment to working with and supporting minoritised groups, such as refugees or those seeking asylum

Knowledge

Essential criteria

An awareness of NHS priorities
Sound knowledge of theoretical underpinnings of at least one evidence based psychological therapy, and ability to apply this in practice
Sound understanding of health care systems and structures: staffing, roles and responsibilities, the role of hospitals, primary care and community care
Master’s level knowledge of research design and methodology
Up to date knowledge of psychological research and national guidance relevant to the client group.
Awareness of the potential impact of discrimination & disadvantage on mental health
Ability to draw upon a specific theoretical knowledge base in the analysis of facts or situations to arrive at appropriate formulations, under clinical supervision
Coherent understanding of how adverse experiences and environment impact on mental health and well-being
An awareness of key issues affecting asylum seekers and refugees

Desirable criteria

An awareness of NHS Plan, NSF and clinical governance priorities
Understanding of ‘Population Health’ strategy

Skills

Essential criteria

Strong ability to engage with a variety of services and community partners and stakeholders, and to expand existing networks
To nurture and maintain strong working relationships with stakeholders
Demonstrate excellent interpersonal, communication and active listening skills with service users, carers, staff and community partners
Work with people from a wide range of backgrounds
Contain and work with organisational stress and able to hold the stress of others
Manage effectively exposure to distressing/highly emotional circumstances.
Manage effectively verbal aggression from service users, families, etc. and the risk of physical aggression
Respectful and collaborative approach to service users, families, carers, colleagues and other professionals
Able to negotiate and ability to handle confrontation effectively and professionally.
Ability to use supervision appropriately and effectively.
Provide & receive sensitive information in a highly emotive and sometimes hostile atmosphere, in a defined setting.
Be flexible and adapt approach according to need
Concentrate intensely for a substantial proportion of working time, during client contact, teaching/supervision sessions, team meetings, preparing written work etc.
Use IT packages – word processing, e-mail and internet, SPSS, Excel and Access.
Ability to use or learn NHS clinical systems such as RIO.