The DClinPsy Application Season is Coming! Timeline & Tips!

(: 00:28

Hi, welcome along to the aspiring psychologist podcast. If you are listening on the day of release, which is Monday the 29th of August 2022, and you are in the UK, then today is a bank holiday. So, enjoy. Does that mean that you get to stay in bed for a bit longer? Does that mean that you get to go and do something fun? Probably not in the sun. It has been very sunny lately. But today it has started pouring with rain. So, there may not be sun around on that day, but what does it mean for you when you get an extra bank holiday? I remember when I was growing up, I used to really like shopping, so my friend and I were like, what is the point in bank holidays? The shops at that time were not open! We were like, we don't get it so boring.

(: 01:22

I can't wait for the bank holiday to be over. And then once you start working, you're like, oh, okay. I get the point of the bank holidays. Now I'm really sorry to all the bank holiday gods. I didn't get the point of them before, because now it's about bit of rest and recharge, you know. I think for me, they really came into their own before I had children. And when I was working full time, certainly when it's during the school holidays, you don't really feel the benefit. Certainly, I don't, because I would usually have a Monday and a Friday off during the school holidays anyway. So, it's just a day, an extra day with the kids, which I know is a really nice thing as well. Okay. So, if you are listening live or live-ish, then what you might well be aware of already is that we have the 1st of September on the horizon and the 1st of September is a pretty key date for aspiring psychologists. And in case you don't know, I'll tell you why.

(: 02:29

So, for a long time now, the 1st of September has heralded the opening of the application process for the clearing house applications for aspiring trainee clinical psychologists. So, the rough timeframe is it opens for applications on the 1st of September. When I was applying, it was always open until the start of December, but I know during the pandemic they scaled it back and sort of made it mid-November. They've made it a bit earlier. I think that was to give them more time to sort out the processes involved in interviews. So, if you are applying, please do check what the deadlines are. I did just have a little look online to see if there was any insider info ahead of the 1st of September. Actually, the clearinghouse leads website says that they're getting a brand-new website from September and that you can't get the new website address until September.

(: 03:39

So, my advice to you would be to give it a Google, clearinghouse leads. And I would definitely think there'll be a redirect of their website address on their current website. The address is in the show notes, but just loosely speaking, it's www.leads.ac.uk/um Charlie hotel, Papa, Charlie, Charlie Papa. And that should hopefully bring you roughly to the right area. But like I said, if you give it a Google it should come up and there might well be that new website address from September onwards. So, I know we do have a pretty varied audience for this podcast. So, we do of course have people who are wanting to apply to the doctorate in clinical psychology this year. But we also have people who don't study psychology and probably won't ever study psychology, but just enjoy learning a bit more about mental health, mental health professionals and the nuts and bolts behind the scenes in creating and maintaining mental health services.

(: 04:48

So, let me just go over a little bit about what the processes are and what this application is all about. So, there are essential criteria for applying for the doctorate schemes, which as a broad-brush approach are largely funded courses. So, you get funded by the local health education authority and employed by a local employing trust. That's certainly the case in England. And I know that Scotland also offers funded places as do whales, but they aren't funded by Health Education England because they are not in England. If you are wanting to apply and you don't live in England there are options in other United Kingdom countries. There are also some self-funded places available to for some of the courses in England, but the details of the amounts as of last year are in the clinical psychologist collective book and it is quite expensive.

(: 05:55

I think from memory it's about 30 grand a year plus of course you'd need to be able to have some way to sustain yourself, to be able to pay for your rent and your living fees as well food and travel and all of that. So, it's not a small expense if you're looking to self-fund that, but some organisations do fund that for their employees as well. So, it's not always people coming from different countries to do self-funding it is possible to be self-funded via companies sponsoring you to do that as well, which is worth bearing in mind. So, in the most part people will have a right to work in the UK and may well be British citizens already and will be applying for training for the doctoral schemes to be funded by the NHS.

(: 06:50

So, I'm going to be giving that as the main advice in this podcast, but if you've got circumstances outside of this then, you know, just let me know or yeah, give it a Google There's a lot that can be found on Google. So, I'm aware that for the last few years there has been an application fee for the clearing house and certainly of last year, if you submit your application and pay before the 20th of October, the fee was 30 pounds. But if you submit your application between the 21st of October and the deadline, which last year was a 17th of November, then the fee was 40 pounds. They call it a processing fee. And the deadline time was 1:00 PM on the 17th last year, but please do check the dates for 2022 because they may well be different.

(: 07:53

My advice would actually be to consider whether your options and your experiences might be changing between the 21st of October and the 17th and November. If you are waiting for new job offer perhaps, or to start a new job, or you're waiting on publication details that you might be able to add to your dissemination section. If there's something that might change between that first deadline time and the second that it's probably going to be in your interest to wait a little bit until you can put that on your form, because that might help you to score more points, but largely speaking, if you are confident that you are reflecting well, you've got enough experience that you've done a really good job on your form or for that matter, if you are applying for a course where you just get invited to a selection test, if you meet the criteria.

(: 09:03

And so, you're not so focused on the quality or the content of your form, then you might well want to do it early so that it gets looked at early so that you get it in. I don't think you get any special treatment. There are only so many places available for interview and you'll only get notified whether you've been invited for interview at the same time as everybody else, which will be springtime which is a general order of events. So usually sort of February, March time dates come out for different courses. And they're staggered. The interview dates are staggered. Usually they're around April, May, June time, but they're quite well organised so there shouldn't be too much overlap for courses that are geographically close. So, it could well be that if you are applying for courses in different areas of the country, that you are getting invites in the same week it's not unheard of.

(: 10:09

But there is usually some flexibility. And I don't even know if they maybe do a little bit of collaboration to make sure they're not offering you on the same day. But if you were in a position where you did get offered on the same day, I think it would be absolutely reasonable that they accommodate that change, especially if it is an in-person interview. So yeah. Should you wait, is question one? I think that really depends on your own circumstances and some people really like the summer to just like do nothing psychology at all. Some people will have learned that they hadn't been successful during the 2022 season. They may have learned that in February, as early as February, March. And so, it can feel like quite a weight from very early spring, you know, late winter to the very start of autumn on the 1st of September.

(: 11:10

So, they might well have made a head start or perhaps even written their application already. And so, they may be eager and raring to go, especially if they haven't gotten new experiences to pop on their form. So, I know when I was working as an assistant, it could be fairly quick changing really, you know, in terms of the new opportunities and experiences that come up, you know, new groups that get offered to you to run or new research opportunities. So, for me, I was also waiting on a job offer. So, I was able to put on my form that I was going to be starting a new job because I had a stop job start date then as well. So, by the time my form was reviewed I had actually started that job because I was due to start in the February.

(: 12:00

So, by the time I started, by the time I did my interviews I'd already been working in that post for three-ish months. So yeah, it will be dependent on your unique factors. You get to decide, you get to choose there's no right or wrong answer, but it can be really useful to discuss that with your supervisor, your clinical supervisor. Certainly, if you are already being supervised by a qualified clinical psychologist to get a little bit of perspective, a little bit of insight. It’s also a really good idea to get someone qualified and also someone that's not anything to do with psychology to read your application form before you submit it. Because we want to be really sure that we are not using jargon. So all the time when I've been screening forms and when I've looked at other people's forms and when I've even been reading and editing accounts for the upcoming aspiring psychologist book we can really heavily use jargon because we are so used to knowing what that means or just using acronyms, which might mean a different thing for me in my particular niche or specialty than it might mean for you.

(: 13:18

Sometimes we can't see our own jargon and it's only when someone who is not working in the area that you are working in says, what does that mean? That you're like, oh yeah. Okay. I could perhaps do with not putting that quite like that and explaining that a little bit more. So yeah. Getting a little bit of advice about that, just getting some fresh eyes, some fresh perspective on your form can be a really good idea. And plus, because we often can't see our own typos. So, getting some insider insight and reflection and opinion can be really useful. Let's just have a quick break here and I will be long to speak with you about some more of my top tips on the other side.

(: 14:06

*testimonial*

Hi, I'm Emily, an assistant psychologist and I love being a part of the aspiring psychologist membership as Marianne and the group are really supportive and it has rekindled my love for psychology outside of work. I always look forward to Monday evening when we have zoom calls from different psychology specialists, such as CBT or CAT therapists. As I always learn something new, I would recommend the aspiring psychologist membership to anyone who is feeling a little stuck of their psychology journey and can afford to invest in developing themselves outside of work.

(: 14:46

So, that is the first of our audio testimonials for the aspiring psychologist membership. It really is a lovely place. Good things are happening. And we do actually open for 15 more members on the 2nd of September as well. So, if you feel like adding some more compassion and some more handover hand guidance and getting up close and personal with qualified clinical psychologists, a variety of perspectives. Also coming this September, we have got a free mindfulness course happening as well for the members. We've also got lots of other wellbeing activities coming up. We've a got research clinic. We have got regular CBT teaching and we've got other disciplines as well to help really exacerbate to help really bring on your formulation skills and your confidence in talking about considering and weighing up different options for treatment. So yeah, it's exceptional value as well at just 30 pounds a month.

(: 15:56

For as long as you want to remain a member. So, any price changes in future, if you are on board will remain the same for you, your price won't increase. So yeah, if you'd like more information have a look at the details on my website, which are in my show notes or feel free to slip into my DMS as well. The places open at 8:00 AM on Friday, the 2nd of September, but only if you're on the waiting list, that's the only way you can get in. So do sneak in and pop yourself on that waiting list and I'll see you there. It's all good stuff, but I will always create free content for you. That is, you know, I firmly believe there should be qualified free access for anybody wanting to further their career in psychology.

(: 16:45

And it shouldn't be like some big mystery. Okay. So, it's in my pledge to you. There will always be free content and it's probably a good time to just give you the dates for this year's compassionate Q and As to support the application process. The first one is on the date it will be opening, which will be the 1st of September 2022. It'll be streaming across my socials but do come and join The Aspiring Psychologist Community on Facebook. If you're on Facebook also be streaming across my other socials, which are now pretty much all Dr Marianne Trent, including YouTube. So yeah, wherever you like to hang out the only place it won't be streaming is, because I can't, my TikTok. I don't think I've got enough followers yet, but you could come and follow me on there. There's other stuff that goes on there too.

(: 17:43

So yeah, if you are a toker is that a thing? I think so. Yeah, I'm on there as Dr. Marianne Trent. Anyway, so the first one, as I said, is the 1st of September 2022 at 7:30 PM. And then the second one is the 10th of October. Also, at 7:30 PM. They will be on my socials on those dates. So, the 1st of September and the 10th of October and there's also the replays that you can watch on my YouTube playlist as well. So, Dr. Marianne, Trent, and you can find the playlist there as well, if you can't make the lives, but you'd like me to answer a question for you, then feel free to get in contact with me via any of my socials. And I will take a little screenshot and keep it in a special folder to be able to answer for you on any one of those dates.

(: 18:40

And if you'd rather me not use your name do let me know. That's okay too. But obviously people have found them really useful in the past and it can just feel nice to be part of something. This will be our third year. I started doing these sessions for people across my socials in September 2020. And it's been lovely to be there for you alongside you and also to grow with you. You know, first came the free Q and As then came the clinical psychologist collective book then came this podcast. I've got lots and lots of work to do the aspiring psychologist collective book. And if you like any information about when that's published, you can jump on to the details in the show notes to register, to be on the right mailing list for that.

(: 19:40

So, what can be useful when you are looking at getting a bit of you down on paper for your form? I think actually doing things on paper can be really useful, but also recording yourself speak can be really helpful because you get your own unique turns of phrase as well, which can be really helpful. So, could you just like get over listening to the sound of your own voice, trust me, the more you do, the easier it gets and just answering those questions allowed could that be really useful? Because the whole website's changing, it might be that the whole process for applications is changing. HEE health education. England threw us a bit of a curve ball last year on the 1st of September, which was also the date of the publication of the clin psych collective book. When they announced there were going to be funding changes for anybody that had had HEE funding for the last couple of years before.

(: 20:40

And they did it as a blanket policy at that point and said, you can't do that. You can't apply, you're no longer eligible. And there was lots of lobbying and surveys, and that was then later reversed largely through the work of Ercan who calls himself Jason. Ercan did Sterling work. So, if you have indeed got a place on the clinical training this year as indeed Ercan has that is thanks to Ercan and to the people in his world that really helped, you know, lobby for that change. So, if you wouldn't have been eligible, but you were able to apply them because of the rule change you know, raise a little toast to him and the work that he did, he was not taking no for an answer.

(: 21:38

And I just see, I think he's very, very inspiring commendable stuff. So yeah, well done to him and well to you. If you've got to training this year too, and you might well be listening to this approaching starting your first few days and weeks as a trainee clinical psychologist, that's what your badge is going to say. You know, that's what your ID card's going to say. And it's a really amazing thing to see it printed for the first time. The first few times you catch yourself looking at it and just thinking, God, that's me, it's my photo on there. It's really, really good. So, you know, also think can be really useful to imagine you with that name, badge around your neck, your photo, probably not the ideal photo you'd like mine was always a bit dodgy and bit grainy.

(: 22:34

Not, not a great hair day that day. But imagine slightly less than ideal photo. Or maybe you are knocking it out the park and you're just like on point with your photos. Mine were never great. Just imagine your photo, your name and the title trainee clinical psychologist. Can you dare to imagine that what blocks come up for you? Does it make you cringe? Does it make you excited? Does it make you think, oh, it's never going to happen? You know, just explore and note down and work through any blocks that come up for you. Right? , I've kind of waffled on and not said a super amount I feel, but I hope it's been useful for you, but I wanted to record an episode. The kids have gone out for the afternoon. I'm also going to be live on box, share radio, BBC radio box share this coming week as well.

(: 23:27

It's going to be Wednesday the 31st of August. So, if you have access to digital radio even if you're not in bed, please do tune into that. And they're going to be just talking to me about me. They want to talk about the podcast, which is really cool. So yeah, very, very nice to be contacted by them and invited onto there. So, if you are local, or if you just want to listen to me waffling on a bit more, then do tune into that. I believe it's 1230 might be, you can listen to that on catch up. And if you are already on my mailing list, I will likely send a little a little replay of that as well. So, if you don't want to miss out, do head to my website, www dot good thinking, psychology dot code UK. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll see the mailing list option.

(: 24:19

And if, whilst you are there, you fancied downloading my free supervision guide, you absolutely could by just going to forward slash supervision at the end, and then you can have that land in your inbox. And there's been some really nice feedback about that as a free resource too. So yeah, I hope to catch up with you on this. First Q and A replays will be available across all of my socials. So, the 1st of September is 7:30 PM be there or be square. And I'm just smiling to myself as I say that because I saw something on socials today that really made me laugh. I think it was what probably a viral tweet by a guy called rich Neville, so full accountability there. And he'd posted this picture of some cheese bags stay fresh cheese bags.

(: 25:14

And with that, he'd put, found something new to say when I leave a room and obviously been making me laugh just as, even as I say it to myself, stay fresh cheese bags oh, so yeah. Could I make that my new sign off rather than thanks for being part of my world, stay fresh cheese bags? Probably not. I might stick with my more compassionate approach, but yeah, if you want to adopt, stay fresh cheese bags, please do. So, thanks to rich Neville, whoever you are for bringing that to my ears and my consciousness, right. Be kind to yourself, enjoy this bank holiday. If you are indeed listening on the Monday or if you're listening on catch up replay, it's all fresh. It's all good. Then hope you had a good bank holiday. And I'm fully aware, not everyone gets bank holidays off as well.

(: 26:09

Many of us have to work when we're in supporting roles. So, if you've been doing that, then I hope you enjoy your day off, hopefully in lie at a later stage. So yeah, I will see you very soon. You get to see my face as well, which is good. I will be available on the compassionate Q and A 1st of September. So, until then thanks for being part of my world. And I will look forward to catching up with you for our next episode. If not before take care.