Apprenticeship training course
Clinical associate in psychology (CAP) (integrated degree) (level 7)
Provide high quality, evidence based psychological interventions to inform practice.
- Qualification level
-
7
Equivalent to master’s degree. - Typical duration
- 18 months
- Apprenticeship category
- Health and science
- Maximum funding
-
£16,000
Maximum amount government will fund
for apprenticeship training. - Skills
-
Skills an apprentice will learn
- Work within the scope of practice of the role and within the bounds of professional competence, in line with employer’s requirements around values, conduct and ethics.
- In all clinical and professional activities, act in accordance with the BPS Professional Code of Conduct, identifying and challenging discriminatory behaviour.
- Actively participate in clinical and professional supervision in order to develop individual scope of practice within legal and ethical boundaries to manage risk and enhance clinical practice.
- Take responsibility for continuous self-reflection, seeking and responding to support and feedback to develop professional knowledge and skills.
- Communicate effectively, share information and check understanding using clear language and appropriate, written materials, making reasonable adjustments where appropriate in order to optimise people’s understanding.
- Recognise and accommodate sensory impairments during all communications and the use of personal communication aids.
- Implement, produce and maintain clear, legible and contemporaneous patient records regarding direct and indirect patient contacts and wider working within teams adhering to professional and ethical standards.
- Act on the duty to comply with service and national standards of clinical record-keeping.
- Assess individuals and/or families using a variety of approaches and a range of psychological assessment methods to assess baseline and change post-intervention.
- Analyse outputs from specialist psychological and cognitive assessments across a broad range of patient needs and disseminate reports to influence own practice and that of others within the multidisciplinary team.
- Implement best practice by conducting assessments and treatment interventions according to evidence-based practice where there are limited treatment protocols to guide practice.
- Take account of how conflicting and sometimes contradictory information from carers and other healthcare professionals, in emotive and challenging situations and contexts, may impact on the outcome of assessment.
- Formulate individual distress to explain how psychological difficulties and presentations are influenced by potentially conflicting sociocultural and attitudinal factors.
- Create, implement and appraise formulations based upon multiple sources of clinical and other data to inform the management of psychological interventions and where no protocols or treatment guidance exists.
- Develop collaborative formulations with patients so as to sense-check understandings and influence delivery of evidenced-based individualised psychological interventions.
- Share formulations with others in a multidisciplinary team to promote patient engagement and to anticipate treatment obstacles and to prevent disengagement.
- Apply a range of psychological interventions consistent with assessment and diagnosis/formulation.
- Explain the rationales to individuals, groups and other professional colleagues, for evidence-based psychological treatment models and protocols.
- Deliver psychological treatments appropriate to the level of patient need and provide treatment at an appropriate level of frequency and duration in the context of distress and complexity.
- Recognise and respond to individual distress using evidence-based psychological treatment models and protocols.
- Analyse and appraise the appropriateness of the range of psychological models and protocols when addressing individualised patient need.
- Analyse and appraise principles of psychological interventions at individual and group level and evaluate episodes of treatment drawing upon evidence-based models and protocols to inform treatment planning and implementation.
- Plan and implement evidence-based treatment protocols specific to individual or group need for managing complexity and chronicity of presentations.
- Generate evidence-based psychological interventions taking into account a range of potentially conflicting clinical data.
- Actively engage patients in treatment regimes to address and resolve emotive contexts and circumstances.
- Apply psychological interventions that are consistent with self-management strategies and action plans for people with complex and chronic needs.
- Apply evidence-based psychological interventions addressing complex and/or long-term needs consistent with psychological models of change.
- Implement evidence-based psychological interventions for people with complex and/or long-term needs with appropriate intervention goals agreed with patients, their families and their caregivers.
- Plan and implement evidence-based psychological treatment models and protocols while providing an individual patient rationale.
- Accurately measure and evaluate outcomes in a range of care settings, by selecting the appropriate measurement tools from a range of possible options in the context of individual and service level change.
- Engage in all stages of audit and evaluation activity, leading to the continuous enhancement and quality improvement of clinical practice.
- Implement a range of psychological measurement tools with individuals, families, or services to evaluate treatment, individual, service or organisational change.
- Provide guidance, support and facilitation to multidisciplinary team members in the delivery of psychologically enhanced approaches.
- Act as a psychological resource within the multidisciplinary team to demonstrate how psychological theories and models can facilitate practice innovations.
- Apply psychological theory and research to address emotive and challenging situations, taking account of conflicting and contradictory information from carers and other healthcare professionals.
- Work as part of a multidisciplinary community team or in specialised clinical settings and liaise with relevant external agencies to facilitate and enable psychological interventions.
- Work collaboratively to identify and meet the learning and development needs of health or care professionals.
- Communicate new learning approaches and provide constructive feedback to challenge and overcome barriers to implementation of best psychological practice.
- Communicate to others the core concepts of psychological theory, research and practice in order to enhance their delivery of psychological interventions.
- Provide training for others to inform and support psychological models of change.
- Provide training within teams to enhance delivery of clinical and research practice interventions appropriate to the health and psychological needs of patients across a range of service settings.
- Engage in research activity to identify service gaps and problems so that new approaches and solutions can be implemented to solve clinical and service problems.
- Communicate clinically relevant research material to a range of practitioners.
- Apply and analyse a range of research approaches including both qualitative and quantitative methods in clinical practice.
- Act as a wider resource within teams to inform clinical and research practice, critically appraise, interpret and implement the outcomes of research methodologies such as service evaluation and clinical audit.
- Evaluate and audit clinical practice through conducting service evaluations to inform change through dissemination of findings ensuring best use of publicly funded resources.
- Act as a wider psychological resource by offering support and clinical supervision to identify psychological issues in a safe, supportive and professional manner.
- Provide a supportive, safe space to enable a clinical supervisory process for a broader mental health workforce supporting better psychological treatment outcomes.
- Act appropriately following employment procedures when serious concerns are raised in clinical supervision about the conduct, competence, or health of a practitioner.
- Enable support and clinical supervision of team members to promote the implementation of models of psychological change enhancing treatment outcomes.
- Apply and review risk assessments and formulations when working with complex patients within scope of practice.
- To effectively communicate decision making processes which have informed the psychological management of risk. Implement and respond appropriately to risk, using appropriate guidance and support, maintaining compliance with service policy and values.
- Assess and identify appropriate practice in relation to critical incident and severe adverse events.
Full information on Clinical associate in psychology (CAP) (integrated degree) (level 7) is available from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.