Clinical Psychologist (Fixed term until 31 March 2026)

Who are we?

Kibble is a specialist provider of services for at risk children and young people across the UK. Many of the young people the charity cares for have experienced significant trauma in their lives and we provide a safe, stable environment that is both nurturing and therapeutic. With a robust support network and wide range of integrated services, we offer young people opportunities and encourage them to believe in themselves, feel a sense of belonging, and realise their own self-worth.

About the service:

The SAFE service is an exciting new national and free to access service for children and families affected by crime. It is Scottish Government funded through the Victim Centred Approach Fund for three years. The service will go to families in their communities and provide person-centred and trauma-responsive services through advocacy, systemic family therapy, psychological and speech and language consultation, assessment, and therapy. 

We are looking for clinical psychologists who are passionate about supporting children and families who have experienced crime. This could be for one day per week to full time and with a high degree of flexibility.

The overall goal of the service is to support the emotional wellbeing of young victims/witnesses to crime (aged 5-25). The service will do this by providing three types of support.

Type 1: professional consultation

We will provide systemic and psychological advice and support for organisations and professionals who do not have that expertise in trauma, mental health, and intervention but who support young victims and witnesses, e.g., education, social work, police. This will include drawing together shared-understanding formulations and care/intervention plans alongside other professionals. It may also include training and consultation around organisational processes and structures. The goal is to improve systems and how they support young people.

We will also support colleagues and partner agencies through institutional advocacy and awareness raising to help other agencies provide the best possible service for victims and witnesses of crime. 

Type 2: delivery of direct systemic family and psychological therapy to children, young people and their wider family impacted by crime.

The service will work with families to help them understand the impact of crime/victimisation and how models such as attachment-based parenting and trauma therapy, can help them and their children and young people. We will support children directly with a therapy modality that fits them. Therapeutic interventions will be assertive and go to the children and families in their community. Our aim is to intervene and prevent experiences of crime and victimisation leading to harmful or risk-taking behaviours.

We understand the impact of multi-generational trauma experienced by parents and carers and will work with a family to help them with the impact of domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. We will work alongside families to enhance their resilience and capacity as carers.  

We will work closely with professionals and services to help ensure that risk assessment and management along with safeguarding requirements are effectively planned, assessed, responded to, and met. 

Type 3: Advocacy

We will provide advocacy support to children who have experienced crime helping them through the Criminal Justice process, explaining the procedures, how they work and ensuring they understand their individual rights. We will support young victims to be able to make decisions based on what is right for them. Our advocacy services will enable children and young people to engage more safely and meaningfully with court processes and feel empowered to complete court actions, with an aim to increase accountability of perpetrators, reduce repeat offending and achieve positive outcomes for family members. 

We will advise children and young people of their options for seeking help and will connect them to services and co-ordinate the provision of multi-agency support in relation to the reporting of crime. We will proactively ensure barriers to accessing support and protection are minimised and will advocate for victims with external support agencies who can help address challenges that they may face. By acting alongside children and young people we will enable them to feel safe and supported in accessing the justice system. 

Job Purpose:

In this role you will work internally and externally providing a highly specialist applied psychology service to service users, families, and professionals.

We are open to considering flexible working for this role such as part-time (minimum 7.5 hours per week), job share, remote working, secondments, and flexible hours.

Main Responsibilities:

• To provide consultation to professionals and those using the service regarding mental health, trauma, victimisation, and psychological assessment, formulation, and risk management.
• To provide specialist psychological assessments of children, young people and families referred to the project based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with children, young people, family members and others involved in the child of young person’s care.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of children, young people and / or family members’ psychological and behaviour problems, based on an appropriate conceptual framework, and using methods based on evidence of effectiveness and efficacy across the full range of care settings.
• To implement a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, staff, professionals, and families by drawing from different explanatory models and maintaining a number of professional hypotheses.
• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family, or group.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment, and discharge of those using the service whose problems are managed by psychologically based plans.
• To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to a treatment or care plan of those using the service.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all those using the service.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management regarding risk to self and risk to others for individuals and their families and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To ensure children and young people who need to be referred to CAMHS or other specialist services are properly referred and to input to other agencies meetings where appropriate.
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of children and families.
• To receive clinical professional supervision from a senior psychologist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.
• To provide training, knowledge and information about the service to professionals and stakeholders in a variety of settings and forums.
• To participate in clinical supervision of staff i.e. MDT colleagues, trainees and peers.
• To write reports summarising psychological assessment, formulation or intervention outcomes.
• To contribute to research, service audit and evaluation.
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Person Specification

Education and/or Professional Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS or HCPC.
• Registration with the HCPC

Desirable

• Further post-doctoral training, research, and study across a range of areas, including advance clinical skills and experience in working with victims of crime, families or forensic populations.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working with a variety of service user groups. Able and experienced in maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for service users’ psychological care and treatment.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology including multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to young people, victims, and mental health.

Job Related Skills and Achievements

• Skills to undertake clinical leadership roles and tasks within the multi-disciplinary and multi- agency contexts in which service users are cared for.
• A high-level ability to communicate effectively at both a written and oral level to colleagues, professionals and lay people, and a high level of skill and ability to foster effective partnership working.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC. 

Personal Attributes

• Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological phenomena related to the development of harmful behaviour and psychological difficulties, an interest in models of service delivery, and an ability to articulate the value added by systemic and psychology services within the context of working with children, young people and families who have experienced crime.
• A capacity to establish priorities and organise workload effectively and efficiently.
• Ability to operate successfully within a team-based setting as well as being able to work autonomously.

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