University of Essex

Support

Our programme offers trainees excellent support for their personal and professional development. Trainees' personal tutors provide pastoral support and conduct placement and other reviews of trainees' progress.

Reflective practice is built into the curriculum in a variety of ways including activities to facilitate the integration of the trainees' learning through self-reflection and personal awareness, promote learning about working with and within groups, teams and organisations and provide for reflecting on all aspects of the training experience.

Trainees also have access to the University's Student Support Office and Counselling Service and the Student Union Advice Centre. 

Benefits of training at Essex

Some of the benefits of studying on our programme include:

• Our programme provides robust and holistic support systems for trainees' personal and professional development, and an optimal training experience and foundation for trainees' career-long personal and professional development.
• The programme is well integrated with local research and clinical networks. Clinicians working in the region contribute directly to the course through teaching, supervision (on placements and as field research supervisors) and other aspects of the programme. This close collaboration provides many opportunities for ensuring strong theory-practice integration.
• The programme aims to develop the critical and reflective competencies of trainees. We provide learning opportunities for developing flexibility, leadership skills and reflective practice that are essential to meet the challenges faced by the profession of clinical psychology and by health services.
• The course provides systemic teaching in Year 2 that is accredited by the Association of Family Therapy (AFT) as a Foundation Systemic Year.

Key values and principles that underpin the University of Essex D.Clin.Psych include:

• We view training as a collaborative enterprise between stakeholders including trainees, service users, carers, NHS services and Trusts, local clinicians, and professional/regulatory bodies. The programme engages these stakeholders to remain responsive to local mental health needs.
• Trainees are adult learners and junior colleagues who contribute to the overall training programme and each other’s training experience. The programme team places a premium on clear communication and consultation in decision-making, incorporating the views of trainees, service users and other stakeholders in the effective delivery of the training programme in order to be responsive to current needs and developments at the forefront of clinical psychology.
• The programme equips trainees to apply psychological knowledge and theory to research and practice in the service of reducing psychological distress and promoting and enhancing psychological wellbeing.
• Trainee clinical psychologists on our programme develop all competencies required of clinical psychologists by the HCPC and the BPS. We consider a competent clinical psychologist to be more than the sum of a number of competencies. Our reflective and integrative focus enables trainees to develop meta-competencies required for reflective, integrative, ethical, autonomous research and evidence-based practice.
• The programme does not prioritise one model or approach, but instead draws on a number of different models and approaches including cognitive-behavioural models, psychodynamic approaches, systemic and integrative approaches alongside developmental, socio-political, critical and other perspectives. The main therapeutic modalities are CBT, systemic and short-term psychodynamic models.
• The programme is committed to recognising, accommodating, and embracing diversity. This is reflected in the recruitment and selection of trainees and throughout the training, which emphasises the importance of developing cultural and diversity-related competence in research and clinical practice. See Clinical Psychology Forum April 2022 issue for a report of our most recent audit of equality and diversity in recruitment and selection procedures.

Quality Assurance 

Feedback is regularly sought from trainees on the quality of teaching, placements, and all other aspects of the programme. Trainees meet regularly with staff in trainee-led meetings. All stakeholders, including trainees, are key members of decision-making bodies within the programme. Stakeholders' views are valued highly and influence programme development.