Counselling Service

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One full-time Senior Counsellor

£38,896 – £49,230

Cambridge University Counselling Service is seeking to recruit a full-time Senior Counsellor to take responsibility for overseeing the administration of the provision of individual counselling work with students. This is a significant position in this large, busy and well-respected multi-disciplinary Counselling Service.

You will be part of the senior management team, have significant line management responsibilities, as well as offering counselling to students.

You will have professional-level counselling or psychotherapy qualifications, or equivalent professional-level CBT qualifications, substantial experience of individual counselling in an organisational or institutional context, preferably FE or HE, be BACP accredited / UKCP Registered or equivalent, and have relevant management experience.

Further information about the Service is available from

The post is subject to an enhanced DBS disclosure.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

The University is committed to equality of opportunity.

Closing date for applications: 18 January 2016

Interviews will take place on: 28 & 29 January 2016

Vacancy available from:1 April 2016

Further Information

Job Title: Senior Counsellor (University Grade 9)

Reporting to: Head of University Counselling Service

Brief Outline: This is a significant opportunity to share in the management of the University Counselling Service, which is the central counselling service for all the University’s students. The successful candidate will have considerable clinical experience in an organisational or institutional context, preferably FE or HE, and a demonstrable ability to lead, motivate and work as part of a highly professional multi-disciplinary teamof counsellors, CBT therapists, mental health advisors and a mindfulness practitioner.

Background Information

The University of Cambridge is one of the oldest universities in the world. Its reputation for outstanding academic achievement is known world-wide and reflects the intellectual achievement of its students, as well as the world-class original research carried out by the staff of the University and the Colleges.

The University of Cambridge consists of over 100 departments, faculties and schools plus a central administration. It employs over 10,000 staff. During the academic year 2013/2014, 18,877 students studied at the university, 11,884 of whom were under-graduates.

The University Counselling Service was founded in 1969. It is a central service that offers counselling to undergraduate and postgraduate students of all of the Cambridge Colleges. Most students self-refer, others are signposted by College tutors, chaplains, nurses, or by GPs and psychiatric services.

Almost 1,600 students attended the Service for individual counselling last year. Most were seen for brief focal therapy by a large team of counsellors using different modalities. The psychological and therapeutic help we offer supports the whole person, so that each student is better able to make the most of the academic and social opportunities that the University affords. As well as individual counselling, the Service also provides:

•a wide range of workshops and counselling groups, typically offering ten per week

•various training activities for students, and University/College staff

•and ‘reflective practice groups’ to a variety of staff groups such as college nurses.

The Student Counselling Service

The Service has two Mental Health Advisors (MHAs) who offer a range of interventions to students who are in crisis or who are experiencing moderate to severe mental health difficulties. The Service has appointed a mindfulness practitioner and is delivering a mindfulness programme to students and researching its impact on improving student resilience.

It is an exciting time to be joining the University Counselling Service. The well-established and respected team has undertaken some recent changes. New therapeutic and administrative staff have joined the team since the appointment of a new Head of Service two years ago. The Service has integrated with the Unified Administrative Service and it will move to a new purpose-built city centre location in 2017/2018.

The staff of the Student Service include:

  • One Head of Service
  • Two Senior Counsellors who oversee the work of the Service along with the Head of Service, line manage the other therapeutic staff, and have responsibility for an area of service delivery
  • Nine Counsellors and/or CBT Therapists (full - or part-time)
  • Two Mental Health Advisors
  • One Mindfulness Practitioner
  • Four/six Associate Counsellors on training placements, typically for one day per week
  • A Psychiatrist who attends the Service for half a day per week during term time.

The therapeutic staff are supported by:

  • An Office Manager and three part-time Administrator/Receptionists
  • A part-time Financial Administrator

Experienced external supervisors with different therapeutic approaches attend the Service to conduct individual clinical supervision for all employed counsellors. Logistics allowing, counsellors can choose which member of the panel to have as a supervisor.

The Service is well respected within the University and Colleges. The culture of the Service is friendly, collaborative and valuing of team-work and team decisions, but also expects all staff to work hard and set high professional standards.

The Service is located in a pleasant building, which comprises 19 counselling rooms and appropriate group and meeting rooms, as well as administrative and staff space.

A separate staff counselling service supports university staff:

Further information about the Service is available on the Service website:

Further information about the post:

The vacancy arises from the retirement of the current post-holder, and is available from 1 April 2016. This is a significant position in the management of the Service. Applicants should be professionally trained, accredited by an appropriate professional body, have extensive experience of individual counselling in an organisational or institutional context, preferably FE or HE, and proven experience of managing aspects of a counselling service. You may already be a Senior Counsellor, Deputy Head or Head of Counselling in a smaller service.

Service staff include psychodynamic, cognitive behavioural and integrative therapists. Applicants should be interested in working in a multi-disciplinary team, have a clear understanding of how the institutional context impacts on therapeutic decisions, and be in sympathy with the Service’s policy of offering primarily brief focal therapy with a limited amount of longer-term therapy when possible and appropriate. Candidates should be flexible in their approach to their therapeutic work. The majority of students who contact the Service present at the sub-clinical threshold and thus can be helped via a range of time-limited modalities. Although the post requires a good working knowledge of evidence-based therapies, the post-holder needs to be versatile enough to adapt and target their interventions to fit a busy student service where brief therapy is the norm. Though this will not be the focus of this post, it is worth noting that the service offers a significant group and workshop programme and timeallowing there might be some opportunity to deliver some workshops for students.

Governance

The Senior Counsellor takes the lead in maintaining the professional standards and ethical working practices of the Counselling Service, including confidentiality and management of risk, within the policies set by the Head of Student Counselling. Part of the role includes maintaining the student handbook and contributing to the updating of the website.

Consultation

A substantial expectation of the role is to offer consultation to the staff of the counselling service regarding practice, ethical issues and dilemma.

Managing demand

As well as managing the intake function of the service, the post-holder needs to be able to think about the appropriateness of referrals, the clinical implication of communications from clients and staff, and liaise with the Mental Health Advisors.

Demand for counselling is high at the University of Cambridge and the Senior Counsellor will have to co-ordinate the allocation of appointments and prioritise according to risksand needs.

In addition, applicants should have extensive experience of offering clinical supervision, running workshops or training events, as the Service offers an increasing number of training and workshops to students and staff in the University.

An interest in research and contributing to innovative service developmentis crucial. Working with students means that we have to keep abreast of technological developments and the Service is considering the provision of online counselling in the future.

Main Activities & Responsibilities:

  • To join the management team of the University Counselling Service, which oversees the day-to-day delivery of all aspects of Service work, and the ongoing development of the Service.
  • To oversee the intake, waiting list and allocation procedures, and work closely with other members of the Intake Team and Reception Team to ensure that the service manages client demand effectively, so that clients are seen in a timely and clinically safe manner and waiting times are kept to a minimum. This can take up to 1.5/2 hours daily at busy times.
  • To line manage a number of counselling staff and contribute to the recruitment and induction of new staff.
  • To contribute to a productive, collaborative and supportive team climate, while ensuring that high professional and ethical standards are set and kept throughout the counselling work of the Service. This includes ensuring that the Service complies with the BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy, and the law.
  • To offer clinical supervision to locum counsellors.
  • To offer consultation to the clinical and administrative staff of the Counselling Service and to respond appropriately to crisis situations.
  • To maintain a caseload of individual clientsin line with Service policies.
  • To offer consultation to College tutors, Directors of Study and others with pastoral responsibility regarding student welfare and mental health.
  • To produce reports and relevant statistics for internal use, and contribute information for the Counselling Service Executive Committee and for Annual Reports. This will requireconfident computer use, in particular in the use of Word, databases and email.
  • To update policy and guidance documents.
  • Staying informed of trends and developments in the professional field, especially with regard to student counselling and to alert the Head of Counselling and management team of the policy implications arising from these changes.
  • To undertake such other duties as may be required by the Head of Service.
  • Together with the other Senior Counsellor in the Service, to deputise for the Head of Service in her absence.

Person Specification

Senior Counsellor

Required

  1. Minimum Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling or Psychotherapy, or professional-level CBT qualifications.
  2. BACP Accreditation or UKCP Registration, or other appropriate professional accreditation.
  3. Strong interest in working with students and the issues that they present.
  4. Substantial experience of offering counselling in an organisational or institutional context, preferably FE or HE, and able to demonstrate a clear understanding of how this context impacts on therapeutic decisions.
  5. Proven and relevant experience of managing staff and being responsible for an aspect of work delivery, preferably for counselling.
  6. Interest in and experience of offering brief focal individual counselling /therapy.
  7. Qualification and extensive experience of offering clinical supervision, and manage ethical dilemma.
  8. Experience of delivering training or similar workshops to students or staff.
  9. Preparedness to follow policies of the University Counselling Service, including flexible working when required.
  10. Confident computer user.
  11. Experience of managing urgent and complex clinical situations with clients, in the context of other practitioners’ work within a team.
  12. Expertise in identifying and managing situations involving clients with mental health difficulties.

Desirable

  1. Proven experience of oversight or management of an aspect of the work of a team of professional therapists or counsellors.
  2. Experience of working in a FE or HE context.
  3. Management qualification.
  4. Experience of facilitating therapeutic groups and/or brief focused workshops.
Conditions of Service

Hours

The hours for a full-time senior counsellor are not specified, but should be in the range 37 – 40 hours per week.

The Service is currently open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8.45 am – 5.30 pm, 8.45 am - 7.30 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 8.45 am – 5.00 pm Fridays. The person appointed will be expected to work during one evening to 7.30 pm. The exact pattern of work is to be agreed with the Head of Service.

The Service closes for about one week at Christmas/New Year each year, but remains open throughout the summer.

Holidays

Annual leave entitlement is 33 days, excluding Public Holidays. Annual leave should be taken with the agreement of the Head of Service,out of term and during periods when the Service is closed at Christmas/New Year.

The University does not take school half terms, and where Public Holidays fall during term, i.e. those falling in May each year, the Service is open and staff work as usual (staff working on Public Holidays take time off in lieu out of term-time).

Salary

The pensionable salary is on a scale from £38,896 – £49,230 (Grade 9 on the University's single salary spine). The starting salary is normally the bottom of the scale but prior experience may be taken into account. There is no payment for overtime hours worked.

DBS disclosure

The post will be subject to an enhanced DBS disclosure.

Probationary period

The appointment will be subject to confirmation on completion of an initial probationary period of nine months.

Application Process

To submit an application for this vacancy, please click on the link in the ‘Apply online’ section of the advert published on the University’s Job Opportunities pages. This will route you to the University’s Web Recruitment System, where you will need to register for an account (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form.

Please ensure that you upload your Curriculum Vitae (CV) and a covering letter in the Upload section of the online application. If you upload any additional documents which have not been requested, we will not be able to consider these as part of your application.

Please make sure that your CV includes ALL previous employment and outlines clearly whether your role was part-time or full-time and the proportion of clinical hours when appropriate.

The closing date for applications is Monday 18 January 2016.

Interviews will take place on Thursday 28 and Friday 29 January.

Please note that this post is a full-time position.

If you have any questions about this vacancy or the application process, please contact

Géraldine Dufour, Head of Service, Cambridge University Counselling Service, 2-3 Bene’t Place, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EL.

Equality of Opportunity at the University

We are committed to a proactive approach to equality, which includes supporting and encouraging all under-represented groups, promoting an inclusive culture and valuing diversity. We make selection decisions based on personal merit and an objective assessment against the criteria required for the post. We do not treat job applicants or members of staff less favourably than one another on the grounds of sex (including gender reassignment), marital or parental status, race, ethnic or national origin, colour, disability (including HIV status), sexual orientation, religion, age or socio-economic factors.

We have various diversity networks to help us progress equality; these include the Women’s Staff Network, the Disabled Staff Network, the Black and Minority Ethnic Staff Network and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Staff Network. In addition, we were ranked in the top 100 employers for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) staff in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index 2013 and we hold an Athena SWAN silver award at organisation level for promoting women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine.

Information if you have a Disability

The University welcomes applications from individuals with disabilities and we are committed to ensuring fair treatment throughout the recruitment process. We will make adjustments to enable applicants to compete to the best of their ability wherever it is reasonable to do so, and, if successful, to assist them during their employment. Information for disabled applicants is available at

We encourage you to declare any disability that you may have, and any reasonable adjustments that you may require, in the section provided for this purpose in the application form. This will enable us to accommodate your needs throughout the process as required. However, applicants and employees may declare a disability at any time.

If you prefer to discuss any special arrangements connected with a disability, please contactSue Geeson Géraldine l: 01223 332865 responsible for recruitment to this position. Alternatively, you may contact the HR Business Manager responsible for the department you are applying to via .

Géraldine Dufour, Head of Service, December 2015

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