Featured Job: Two psychologists for autism service, Midlands Psychology

Angela Southall, Director of Services at Midlands Psychology, is understandably enthusiastic about the organisation. 'We're a unique health provider – a not-for-profit social enterprise, committed to localism. We aim to understand the communities we work in, in depth. These roles are real, and rare, opportunities for psychologists to use a psychosocial model. We don't medicalise clients – we have a strong belief that children are ordinary children first and foremost. Because of our approach, we often find we are the only people who "join the dots" together and try to make sense of children's experiences.'

Midlands Psychology covers a fairly wide geographical area. It has been up and running since 2009 and now employs about 30 staff. 'We're small but that suits us. We offer a range of services, including a young people's forensic service and psychological services for looked-after children. We have a nationally recognised strength in addressing children's feeding disorders. Our new supported living service is offered in partnership with The Big Issue. That says something about our ethos. So does the fact that we don't sit in offices or clinic rooms: we do our work in many different locations in the community. I recently saw a family in a brewery!'

These jobs are going to be busy. 'Our autism service offers an open-access system to all families, once their child has a diagnosis. We see about 1500 families a year, about 50:50 diagnosis and intervention. The core element of these roles is assessment of children who may or may not have an autism spectrum condition, as well as planning and delivering a range of follow-on psychological interventions. There are training and research activities as well. We have a well-developed stream of research. We publish widely, leading nationally on publications on feeding disorder and edit the first UK Paediatric Psychology series for Radcliffe Publications. I'm particularly excited about a new research project we are about to embark on with the National Autistic Society and Aston University.

'Shared values are critical to finding the right people to fill these roles, but, of course, some experience of working with children who have autism will be useful. We have a very full and energetic internal training programme and we take external training very seriously.'

Angela's obvious pride in what Midlands Psychology does is externally validated by awards. 'In 2014 we won the NHS Lean Healthcare award for Best Impact on Patient Experience, as well as two awards from the National Autistic Society in the categories of Clinical Excellence and Innovative Family Support.'

Midlands Psychology is holding a Recruitment Day on Friday 3 March 2017 at 12.00pm in Stafford. For further details of this, ring Abbey Boss on 01785 748447.

-Find this job on our Psychologist Appointments website.