Clinical Psychologists
Locations: Liverpool, Coventry, Oxford, Brent (NW London), Central London, Croydon

Salary: Equivalent to Agenda for Change, Band 8a although developmental Band 7 posts will be considered.

Hours Full time (35 hours) or flexible/part time arrangements if required

About us
Crisis is the national charity for homeless people. We know that homelessness is not inevitable. We know that together we can end it.

We are a dynamic, innovative and values-led organisation, with the ability to develop our services to meet the needs of the people we work with. As part of our commitment to end the homelessness of more people using our direct services, including people with complex needs, we are investing in a clinical psychology offer across our Skylight services, and our new Housing First provision in London.

Our funding means our services can work with clients at their pace, in a person-centred manner that helps them identify their strengths as well as their priorities for things to address to help them leave homelessness for good. This may be facilitated through our client incentives fund – which operate along the lines of personalised/ individual budgets, aligned to the achievement of goals that will enable people to leave homelessness for good.

The role in Wales is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.

This is an exciting time to join Crisis as a clinical psychologist. All our teams have been trained in Psychologically Informed Environment through Dr Emma Williamson (Clinical Psychologist) of aneemo and we have developed our initial approach informed by advice from her and Professor Nick Maguire. You will be joining a new team of psychologists which includes a lead clinical psychologist and there are people in place in four of the 11 Skylight Centres.

You will be joining a community of practice – with links internally and externally to the leading practitioners in the field of homelessness and psychology – and have the opportunity to work strategically to influence practice across the sector.

About the role
As a clinical psychologist working with Crisis, you will add value by helping us work with complexity and help people change their lives and leave homelessness for good.

The role will encompass four key aspects:

1. Direct Clinical work – working one to one and in groups holding a direct caseload that reflects the importance of flexible personalised approaches. Working alongside people to develop shared assessments and formulations to inform interventions and possible referrals to appropriate statutory and voluntary services.
2. Consultation, Training and staff support – facilitating case-focused reflective practice sessions, enabling and encouraging the skills in others, providing “consultancy” advice and support to colleagues, and pedagogy “on-the- job” support
3. Research – working alongside our Research and Evaluation teams to evaluate our evidence-based practice, ensuring our services are effective and achieve meaningful outcomes for our clients
4. Psychologically Informed Environment – working alongside the team to support the continued development of a wider psychologically informed environment for clients and staff.

Roles will be available in the following locations: Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford, Brent (NW London), Central London, Croydon, Swansea.

We are flexible about employment arrangements for these roles.

We are offering full time (35 hour) posts directly employed by Crisis but are also very happy to consider secondment arrangements from NHS Trusts or Universities. We encourage conversations with people who are seeking and seeking part time roles or job sharing opportunities.

We are offering salaries commensurate with Grade 8a on NHS salary scales. There is flexibility within the scale according to experience. We are also interested in talking to early career or trainee psychologists about ways we might be able to facilitate an interesting career progression towards an 8a role.

Crisis has a serious commitment to Continued Professional Development and supervision. Professional supervision is provided by the Lead Clinical Psychologist and individual arrangements for clinical supervision will be organised as required. External clinical supervision will be provided for all direct employees.

About you
You will be passionate about working with people who have experienced complex trauma and homelessness, including those with dual diagnoses. You will be a patient, persistent, empathetic and flexible practitioner, able to engage individuals who may have experienced exclusion from other services. Your values will reflect and be aligned with ours (inspiration, integrity through evidence, dignity, fearlessness through independence, adaptability, and resolve to end homelessness) and you’ll be motivated to work with us because of them.

Your therapeutic training and practice will have encompassed one or more of the key evidence-based interventions with a focus on people who have had to face enormous challenges in life, often from a very early age. These may include, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, Systemic Therapy, Mentalisation-Based Therapy and/or Acceptance Commitment Therapy, Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The capacity to think and formulate at a systemic level is very important.

You will be risk conscious and risk aware, boundaried, but not risk averse, and able to support others within your teams to manage complexity and uncertainty in their client-facing work.

You’ll be personally resilient and a great communicator, able to help our staff teams build and develop their capacity and facilitate client-focused reflective practice sessions.

Moreover, you will be excited about the opportunity to work with us – and our clients – in a creative, well-resourced organisation that is committed to learning and improving, following the evidence, and resolved to end homelessness

You will be registered with the HCPC.

How to apply
For a full job description and details of how to apply, please send us an email via the 'apply now' button.

If you would like to speak to us further about the roles or understand more about Crisis and the work we do, please e-mail our Lead Clinical Psychologist, Peter Oakes to arrange an informal conversation

If you need to request an application in an alternative format, please contact the HR Team, contact details can be found on our website. 

Closing Date: Sunday 15th March (23:59)

Registered Charity Numbers: E&W1082947, SC040094