After graduating from my undergraduate
degree (with a pretty good result, I might add!) I felt confident that I’d be
able to go and get a job as an assistant psychologist. Unfortunately, I quickly discovered things
weren’t as easy as I’d hoped and I ended up falling into a couple of jobs that
were still relevant to psychology, but not what I was originally hoping
for. I thought I’d write a little about
my experiences of these jobs to give an idea of what they might be like for
those interested.
Support
Worker
Shortly after graduation, I gained a position as a support worker
for adults with learning difficulties and mental health problems. My responsibilities included personal care,
analysis of needs, emotional support and ensuring their development by
involvement in the community to help maintain a level of independence. I worked
in a supported living setting and my role involved a lot of driving using cars
assigned to the clients. These cars were
often quite large, which was definitely an adjustment from the Nissan Micra I’d
passed my test in (4th time around…)!
Several of the clients expressed challenging behaviours such as
physical aggression, verbal abuse and communication difficulties. The work was
on a one-on-one basis, and being on my own with the client during each shift
meant I had to use my initiative to manage each individual client’s needs. The work was difficult, and sometimes daunting,
but very rewarding and it was lovely to see clients develop and change as we
got to know one another better.
As I’d never worked in care before, I was worried about being able
to deal with the personal care aspect of things, but once you’ve changed one
adult nappy you’ve changed them all! I
learned a huge amount in this role and felt it formed a very important
foundation in my understanding of working with people of all different needs
and backgrounds.
Behavioural Healthcare
Assistant
After I’d been a support worker for a few months I found a job as
a Behavioural Healthcare Assistant. I
was really excited to work in a hospital with a different sort of
client/patient. The role involved
working one-on-one with patients with complex behavioural and cognitive
presentations on the neuroscience wards.
My responsibilities involved patient care
such as washing and dressing, toileting, feeding and helping people to
mobilise. I also provided emotional support if necessary and assist in keeping
the ward running smoothly by helping to make beds and keep the environment
clean. I mainly had to ‘special’ which
meant sitting with high-risk patients during the day to ensure they stayed safe
– for example, helping them walk if they were unsteady, keeping them grounded
if they were confused, and making sure no tubes or IVs got accidentally ripped
out during an aggressive episode.
This role gave me invaluable experience of
working in a clinical setting and I feel it gave a good foundation for future employment in the
health service. I feel I have more
insight into the patient experience and a better understanding of people. Healthcare
Assistant roles aren’t glamorous, but they give an excellent look into how
hospitals and the health service works from the ground up. It was very difficult and upsetting at times,
especially when patients were aggressive or very confused, but the good days
far outnumbered the bad and I became quite skilled at making friends with even
the grumpiest person!
As a Behavioural Healthcare Assistant, I also had
supervision from a clinical neuropsychologist at the hospital and weekly
workshops involving case formulation and lectures. This was quite unique to this role as it was
a new venture for employing psychology graduates in the health service and
making it a more worthwhile experience for them – hopefully this will start to
be rolled out all over the UK! I
definitely feel very lucky to have been able to experience it. Even if you get a job as a regular Healthcare
Assistant, there are no doubt opportunities for you to help out with audits or
assessments – ask your ward manager what possibilities there might be.
Assistant Psychologist Interview
During my time as a BHCA, I managed to get an interview for an Assistant Psychologist position at a special needs school. I was incredibly nervous as this was my first big interview and I also had to prepare a presentation, which was nerve-wracking. I unfortunately didn't get the job, but I thought an overview of what happened might be helpful to others unsure what to expect.
- I had to give the presentation first, which was on a kind of behaviour modification the school used on the children. I was vaguely familiar with it due to my undergraduate degree and project being on learning difficulties and functional analysis, but I made sure I did my research. I didn't prepare a Powerpoint - perhaps I should have!
- I was interviewed by 4 people (the clinical psychologist, an assistant psychologist, the headteacher and the mother of the child I'd be working with) which was incredibly scary. They all had clipboards and were ticking things off as I talked
- They then asked me questions such as 'How would you explain conducting an applied behavioural analysis to a multidisciplinary team who were unfamiliar with the process?'
My biggest mistake was not taking enough time to think and answer the questions - my nerves definitely got the better of me which is a shame as I felt more than qualified for the job. I tried not to be too down about it though and felt proud I'd even got past the application stage. Make sure you're prepared and don't be too nervous!
I hope my experiences have given you some insight
into what some of the other options are for work experience aside from
assistant psychologist roles, and what an assistant psychologist interview might involve!
No comments:
Post a Comment