Status: Permanent
Salary: Band 7, £38,966 – £45,937, per annum, dependent on experience (Pay Award Pending)
Hours: Full-time, 37.5 hours per week
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Are you an HCPC Registered Clinical or Counselling Psychologist or BABCP accredited Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist with experience and/or passion in providing specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention for adults with a range of mental health needs, with a particular emphasis on trauma related difficulties?
Would you like to join a passionate and integrated interdisciplinary team delivering holistic, evidence-based treatment to Veterans and their families?
Are you looking for a challenging, dynamic and specialist role with a wealth of opportunities to develop your clinical, supervisory, and training skills and to contribute to research?
If so, then this is the role for you.
About Us:
Combat Stress was established in 1919. We are the UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health. For a century, we’ve helped former servicemen and women deal with trauma-related mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression.
Today we provide UK-wide support to veterans from every service and every conflict, on the phone and online, in the community and at our treatment centres. We’re on a mission to raise awareness that invisible injuries can be just as hard to cope with as physical ones. So, when a veteran is having a tough time, we’re there to help tackle the past and to take on the future.
About the role:
You will be joining Combat Stress, the UK’s leading Veterans mental health charity, providing highly specialist clinical treatment and support to Veterans of the UK armed forces who have complex mental health needs attributable to their military service.
Like all staff within the organisation, you will receive training to understand something of military life, culture, values and what it means to have served on operations in hostile territory. You will learn of the dedication, the profound sense of identity and belonging which enables our servicemen and women to deploy their duties yet can also be the source of great loss when making the transition to civilian life. To ensure sensitivity to the culture, attitudes and language of the military, the services you will be delivering have been co-designed and co-produced with Veterans and their families.
You will be joining a trauma-informed organisation. All staff in all roles are trained in a common understanding of how traumatic experiences affect people, ensuring that every interaction with any staff member, supports a veteran’s recovery.
With your academic skills, clinical experience and critical thinking, you will ensure that we continue to be innovative, research-led and clinical leaders for complex mental health needs in Veterans, maintaining and raising standards of clinical quality, effectiveness and efficiency within our service. Combat Stress are at the cutting edge of research and participation in current research projects is actively encouraged. We have research partnerships internationally, with Kings College London, The UK Psychological Trauma Society (UKPTS) and the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ESTSS).
Your role as a Psychological Therapist will be to provide specialist assessment, collaborative formulation, treatment planning and intervention to Veterans and their families within an integrated interdisciplinary care pathway. You will offer specialist expertise in the area of psychological trauma, PTSD, and Complex-PTSD, providing expert opinion, supervision and consultation to your inter-disciplinary colleagues and external partners.
Your caseload will be varied with 1:1 trauma therapy and group facilitation, delivered both online and face-to-face. You will be delivering psychological interventions that span the range of evidence-based therapies for PTSD and C-PTSD, including: Trauma Focused CBT, Narrative Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure and Compassion Focused Therapy. The role offers many exciting opportunities for developing clinical practice and expertise. You will have the opportunity to supervise trainees and participate in and facilitate peer supervision and reflective practice. You will also be invited to attend regular CPD opportunities, both internally and externally with colleagues from across the UK and sometimes abroad.
As a representative for Veterans mental health needs and for the organisation, you will nurture strong external relationships in order to enhance inter-agency collaborative working, building on existing relationships with NHS England, NHS Scotland, CQC, the Royal College of Psychiatry and other third sector organisations.
Pre-existing experience in working with veterans is not an absolute requirement, although it would be ideal, but if you want an exciting career in working with the psychological impact of trauma then we are the service for you. We can offer substantial training in the British military, military culture and veteran experience.
This role is subject to a DBS check.
What we offer:
We provide and are genuinely committed to a safe, exciting, learning environment where staff feel valued, engaged, respected and that they truly matter to everything we do.
You will work within one of the UK’s most well established, innovative and reputable charities positively shaping the future of Veterans’ mental health services.
We offer a comprehensive suite of mandatory and essential training for all new staff, in addition to role specific training and a variety of opportunities for Continued Professional Development.
We are planning to offer funded training to ensure that all psychological therapists are trained in at least two empirically based trauma-focused therapies, i.e., Trauma-focused CBT for multiple trauma, Narrative Exposure Therapy, EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy, DBT & Prolonged Exposure, Schema-focused therapy.
You will receive regular managerial and clinical supervision, peer supervision, and opportunities for reflective practice.
We also have a highly regarded peer support service, run by Veterans for Veterans that benefits from excellent clinical governance and which supports all stages of a Veteran’s recovery.
There are opportunities to collaborate with our National Veterans Voice Network and Family Focus Groups to promote continued co-production of services, in addition to novel opportunities to work with our Marketing, Communications and Fundraising departments.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently predominantly working remotely. We are investing significantly in our digital service delivery, with the aspiration of offering equivalent treatments online to those we deliver in-person, both individual and group interventions. These will continue to be a core part of our services going forward to maintain and increase accessibility to treatment. There is flexibility with this role to negotiate an element of remote working in the future in line with service needs post-pandemic.
We would be happy to consider flexible and/or part time working hours.
In addition to this exciting and rewarding role, we offer the following benefits:
- 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
- 1% uplift on NHS Agenda for Change equivalent spinal points
- Paid 30-minute lunch break (typical working day 09:00 – 16:30)
- Flexible working arrangements available
- Competitive stakeholder pension scheme – contributions matched up to 10%
- Discount shopping vouchers
- Cycle to work scheme
- Access to the Employee Assistance Programme
- Protected CPD
How to apply:
To apply, send an up to date CV and covering letter to recruitmentnorth@combatstress.org.uk
For further information about the role please contact Diomidis Psomas, Principal Counselling Psychologist on diomidis.psomas@combatstress.org.uk
