Featured job: Clinical Psychologist / Associate

Dr Maria Downs founded M Downs and Associates in 2012. Although she initially worked alone, growing demand for her services created the opportunity to grow the team and take on associates. Maria explains: 'Our associates work on a self-employed basis which means they get to choose the amount of work they take on and when and where they do this. Associates tend to fit this around other commitments. Most of our associates work for the NHS and/or in education as I originally did.'

'Growing demand for services means we need to increase our ability to respond to needs from a wider geographical area. We are therefore looking for associates both locally and nationally as well as to employ two permanent clinical psychologists to respond to existing demand in the region and to develop our services: one will provide assessments and therapeutic interventions primarily with children and families; the other will assess and work with adults.

Maria explained that the company provides court psychological reports, the majority involving families within child protection proceedings. 'Our reports assist the court in making decisions in the best interests of children.' Other reporting work deals with victims of torture, organised violence and trafficking and reports in relation to industrial tribunal claims.

'Writing assessment reports is a crucial part of most clinical psychologist roles, but providing court reports requires a change of focus and approach. When I was asked to provide my first court report I didn't know where to start and did not know whether this was beyond my professional competence. The company provides training, mentoring, and support to our associates to help them to grow their knowledge, skills and confidence and to ensure all our reports are of a high quality.'

'We are a small company and aim to help people live better; both our clients and team members. We want our employees and associates to thrive and enjoy developing, so rising to the many challenges faced within a growing and dynamic, successful organisation. A good work life balance is critical. We provide a comfortable, spacious working environment and flexible working. Quality administrative support and processes, including a customised software system, which allows team members to get on with what they do best. '      

'Other support includes clinical and peer supervision, targeted training, including one to one mentoring, and team meetings. There will be promotion opportunities promotion as we develop and grow our services. We want our staff to grow so that they can effectively meet the expectations of those positions.'

'Our great team works well together, are supportive of each other, and are focused on organisational growth. The ideal candidate will be enthusiastic, enjoy working as part of a dynamic team, and will be keen to grow with the organisation. I would say to anyone who has questions about the roles or is interested in a permanent position even if unable to commit to full time hours, please contact us at [email protected].'   

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