Ips Employment Advisor

Placement Manager 

£35k p.a. FTE part-time (2-3 days a week) 

Location: initially remote working but to be hybrid based in W/NW/SW London.

We are looking for a Placement Manager to join our enthusiastic and friendly team. Help Counselling Centre is a small Mental Health charity providing one-to-one counselling, both in person and online.  We are also a well-established training placement provider for trainee counsellors and psychotherapists studying with prestigious training providers in London.

About Help

Help Counselling is well-established Mental Health Charity with a heritage of over 50 years. We provide training placements for clinical supervisors, counsellors and psychotherapists who need to gain clinical experience to qualify (or further qualify) and be registered with one of the industry professional bodies such as, BACP or UKCP. For ethical reasons, the work trainee counsellors / psychotherapists do is unpaid, i.e., they must volunteer their time.

This volunteer model enables Help to fulfil its charitable aim of providing low-cost counselling services. It can take between 3-5 years to qualify, and our training placements are for minimum of 12 months meaning we can also provide clients with long-term help. The blend of low-cost and long-term talking therapy is much needed in a time of increasing demand for mental health support and increasing complexity of presenting issues.

About the job

Reporting to the Help Director, the job is to ensure the smooth and effective running of the training placement process in line with BACP requirements.

This will include providing clinical support and expertise to the Help Director; managing and assuring the quality of the counsellor recruitment process; handling counsellor issues; overseeing weekly client allocations and reallocations; handling queries and managing relationships with clients, counsellors and supervisors; reviewing and enhancing clinical policies.   

Currently our client volumes are between 250-350, we have approximately 90 counsellors and clinical team of approximately 20. 

We operate a number of cloud-based IT systems and have outsourced HR and Finance functions.

 Key responsibilities

·        Provide clinical support and expertise to the Help Director as required.  

·        Manage and oversee process of new counsellor recruitment, ensuring all new counsellors are interviewed and vetted against a suitable set of standards and controls. 

·        Manage paperwork required by Training Organisations in relation to Trainee Counsellors at the beginning and during their placement. 

·        Being available to support Trainee Counsellors on clinical placement with Help.

·        Manage the Cause for Concern’ procedure with Trainee Counsellors and Supervisors as and when they arise. This will include ensuring appropriate record-keeping and taking appropriate action to ensure counsellors are working safely and within the BACP ethical framework. 

·        Provide a point of escalation for client, counsellor or supervision queries. 

·        Manage and oversee weekly client allocations and reallocations. 

·        Manage any queries raised from Assessments and manage any declined clients 

·        Assist in the periodic review and creation of appropriate clinical policies and procedures. Provide input into policies and procedures based on changes to best practice guidelines issued by professional bodies. 

The Candidate

Education & experience: Counselling or Psychotherapy Qualification, BACP or UKCP professional membership, 3-5 years' post-qualification experience. Experience of working within a training environment within the same industry highly desirable.

Skills:

·        Excellent facilitation.

·        Strong task and time management.

·        High standard of verbal and written communication skills.

·        Highly organised.

·        Ability to provide challenging feedback to others, managing and responding professionally and appropriately to conflict and risk. 

·        Interpersonal and influencing skills, especially the ability to engage with counsellors.

·        Stakeholder management.

·        Adaptability.

·        Analytical and problem-solving skills

·        Knowledge of MS Office suite and ability to learn new systems quickly. 

·        Working understanding of HR-related policies and procedures including EDI and working with competency frameworks is highly advantageous.