Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner Review

I start my day at 08:00 in the morning, generally I will undertake one or two assessments in the day which means that when someone is referred into the service, we assess their mental health to see if Oxfordshire Talking Therapies would be suitable to meet their mental health needs. I also complete various admin tasks throughout the day like writing letters, and responding to emails. An important part of my role is proving Cognitive Behavioural therapy to patients, and I work with patients once every two weeks to help them improve their mood and reduce their anxiety.

I have learnt a huge amount of new skills since starting at this role. As well as diary management, which can be difficult with the amount of patients we see a week, I have learnt the skill of providing different CBT interventions to people who are suffering with low mood or anxiety.

I do enjoy having a day out of service to focus on my own development, and without the programme I would not have been able to progress to where I am now. Generally, the content is interesting and relevant to what we are learning, and I like the mix of in- person and online learning that takes place. They are very open to feedback and development, and I think that is an important part of growth.

The programme is well organised on the whole, I can always find what we are doing each week, and find out where I need to be. I have found that some of the content learnt could be reorganised, in the sense that some days feel very information heavy, with not much time to spare, while other days feel information light, and could actually be reduced into half a day of learning. Generally, I am very pleased with the organisation and structure.

As a team in the office, I do feel very supported by my colleagues however, when I first started I felt quite overwhelmed with the amount of work we were expected to do and feel like this transition could have been better. I understand that they have a very high target to reach, but I did find that I often felt stressed with the amount of work that I had to do. I also feel this in the transition between completing assessments and starting treating patients, I am not sure I felt ready to start treatment when I did which was a bit stressful at the time. However, I do know that I could reach out to supervisors and managers should this get too much, and that they would help me if I needed it.

I feel very supported by the apprenticeship team. They are very good at responding to emails, and very clear with any instructions or guidance they are providing. I feel able to speak to any of the team should I have any problems, and know that this will be dealt with quickly and sensitively.

I do not feel I would be able to complete my role without the apprenticeship learning, they have taught most of the information that I use in service. There are some discrepancies between what we learn in the programme and how we are taught to work in service both with assessments and treatment which could be confusing at times, but this was explained to us by the apprenticeship team.

I know that colleagues do go for drinks after work sometimes, and I am invited to these. I know there is a BPA accreditation visit which I have been asked to join, but unfortunately I am not available. As far as I am aware, I cannot think of any other activities at work.

Yes

While my experience of the apprenticeship year and Oxford Health has been mixed, I do feel support is in place should I need it, both clinically and personally. I do feel that I could reach out to supervisors and managers if I needed to, and generally speaking I have enjoyed my time with the Trust, and work with a lovely group of people.

As with any role, I would make sure that you are aware of the people you can contact in your team if you should run into any problems at work, and make a note of any questions that you have to make sure that your voice is heard. Although this can be applied to any job, I would encourage you to ask as many question as possible, and use the support around you.