Career change- clinical or ed psychology at 45?

[AngryPurpleSleepingBag]

I’m thinking of a career change. I am currently a teacher, earning 38K in an independent school. I’d like to work for NHS mental health services in some way and whilst I could take a slight pay cut temporarily I need to earn a bit more than this in the long run.

if I were to do a psychology conversion msc (I’ve figured out this much is doable) does anyone know what my chances are of getting an assistant ed psych or assistant clinical psychologist job in my late 40s and then being accepted onto a doctorate training for either of those professions? Are any mumsnetters doing these jobs and could you advise?

I am fairly confident I could handle the academic side of the doctorate training but it’s more the working life that I have questions about. Also do they give bursaries/ train people my age? I’d have about 20 years of service to give once trained, not sure if this is considered enough.

Alternatively is there a quicker route to being a cbt practitioner or similar in the NHS?

@Blanketenvy would that be before or after the msc?

@Shinyandnew1 yes I looked at counselling but as you say it’s expensive to train and seems to be paid worse than I am paid now.

@AngryPurpleSleepingBag This thread is moving quite quickly so apologies if I repeat anyone.
I'm an ex teacher who re trained as an Education Mental Health Practitioner. I work for the NHS delivering guided self help , workshops , training , assemblies. Work with parents and students.
I love it and I'd say it sounds perfect for you apart from a few things - pay. Its Band 4 when training and Band 5 when qualified.
Also lack of progression further than that if that's important to you. I've seen excellent colleagues with fantastic qualifications and experience struggle to move on to clinical psychology as it's so competitive. A few have gone on to Band 6 CBT trainee roles. There is now a Senior EMHP role at Band 6 but I don't have experience of that.

I know you are busy but it would be time well spent to try and talk to people in real life - does your school employ a counsellor or psychologist for example?

Educational and clinical training are both highly competitive but your age isn't a barrier per se. But it isn't necessarily an advantage either.
Re educational psychology...What's your experience of working in the state sector or with socially disadvantaged groups/ children with complex additional needs?

Biggest barrier for experienced teachers applying to assistant ep vacancies is that they underestimate the change and challenges - we're not looking for a suped up special needs teachers. A focus on social models of disability, impact of trauma and social justice is very important.

Most training universities offer an annual open session to prospective candidates - look out for those or contact your nearest and ask if they have one planned.

Wales and Scotland are both more attractive workplaces at the moment - would either work for you? Wherever you train you're highly unlikely to earn £30,000 pa until you're qualified.

Check out local pay rates for counselling - it's a saturated market round here. Counsellors earn far less than psychologists in our team.

I would seriously consider OT as once qualified (and its much quicker) there are such a range of options and as a previous poster said you can focus on mental health or special needs or autism assessments etc.

And yes I completely echo @Tickledtrout and should have said in my post - your teaching experience alone wouldn't get you on an EMHP training course for example- they would be looking for experience/ training in mental health interventions. Does your school offer the chance to train to be a mental health first aider / ELSA / can you do something outside of school?
Any path you are looking at would want experience / training etc

I'm an EP, working for an LA. Unlike @Neolara, I'm really happy where I am, and have a good variety of work - but I agree that lots of EPs are leaving LA work as in lots of places it's very statutory heavy, which isn't as satisfying as other work we do. The trick is finding an LA which still has the variety and puts effort into making sure their EPs aren't too tempted to leave - I think that can be quite tricky though, I'm very lucky where I work! I'd still thoroughly recommend it as a job, and your teaching experience will be invaluable. I'm an ex teacher and think I'm a better EP for it.

I wouldn't worry too much about assistant roles for the EP doctorate, as it's not necessary - though can be helpful, and really enjoyable if you want to go down that route. When I trained about half of my course had been assistants. I think I might be right in saying it's more important for clinical, but don't take my word.

I'd also not worry about your age - there's a a big variety on the courses, which is lovely.

Good luck, whatever you choose!

I’ve just had a quick look at that-so it’s a 2 year Masters conversion (and you’d need to show assessable proof of study within the last 5 years). I presume it’s full time so you couldn’t work alongside? You can get £5k a year grant but presume the fees would be £9k each year if it’s the same as u/g courses. I know that’s not something you have to pay outright, but you’re still borrowing £18k and will lead to paying out a monthly outgoing you didn’t have before for many years to come. It’s hard as I’d really like to do the OT training.

Oh in addition - it can be really difficult to get any shadowing opportunities because of confidentiality etc., but lots of LAs do sessions for prospective EPs to learn more about the role and speak to current trainees and EPs, as well as the universities doing open days, so it could be worth looking into them!

It's a long hard extremely competitive slog training as a psychologist and mostly self funded and unpaid while training for many years.
You would be must better looking to retrain as a PWP (psychological well-being practitioner) and then used that as a stepping stone to train as a CBT therapist.

This would cut out the Msc and instead you would apply for a PG Cert as a psychological well-being practitioner. You can either self fund this or apply to local IAPT services in your area for one of the (competitive) funded training positions. These usually come up once to twice a year (very soon actually - for September uni start date). If you got a funded position it means you will get paid for your training year as well as them paying your course fees. I think as someone older with life and work experience you would be an appealing choice as the team is often full of much younger inexperienced 25 year olds and you would add a nice balance and patients would probably like you also.

It's takes a year to qualify and if you're being paid then you will be the bottom of NHS Band 4 during that year. When you qualify you will move to bottom of Band 5.
You then need to complete 2 years usually as a PWP before you can start applying for CBT training positions. You would be mad self fund this, because although it's competitive you would 100% get one and just need to try all the local services each time the vacancies come up (usually twice a year depending on local uni's in take dates).

You would train at bottom of Band 6 and once qualified (takes usually 2 years but some do a fast track course of 1 year!) you would start at the bottom of Band 7 which is exactly what psychologists get paid but they have done it all over more years, more stress, and less pay during that time!

Hope that helps as one possible idea for you!

Ditto! I love working in my LA role; yes, statutory work has gone through the roof recently which has brought its own challenges, but we still have a good balance of other work to keep it varied.

(Just to say that the vast majority of training courses will forbid working while on the doctorate and for good reason, it’s an incredibly intense three years.)

Wow you are all amazing 🤩 thank you so much. I’ll read everything carefully and reply after dinner

@shufflek this is exactly the kind of slightly less long and expensive pathway I was hoping for. Thank you! I’ll look into this. Dh (also a teacher) has just reminded me about holidays. I would miss the holidays but at the moment I spend most of them recovering from the term time and I’m not sure it’s worth it.

now I have questions about PWP working life:

do PWPs spend the majority of time in one to one consultations?

do they take work home?

do they do paid or unpaid overtime?

what is the emotional impact of this job?

Do people burn out in the same way they do in teaching?

what settings do they work in?

thanks!

You can pay for your own counselling psychology doctorate. Look it up. Then work in the nhs. Clinical is notoriously difficult to get into. That said, every year people do get in with the minimum qualifications/experience and in my experience they tend to be mature students! The thing about clinical is that there's no failsafe "recipe" or pathway.

There are a LOT of vacancies for clinical/counselling psychologists in the nhs. A lot. It's a fantastic career.

I don't know about Ed Psych, but it would make much more sense with your existing qualifications!

@FANCHEA unfortunately I can’t afford to self fund anything. I guess it can be done on a student loan but I can’t do anything that doesn’t involve at least a 15k bursary for all years of training

Otherwise I’d love to just stop work and self fund a doctorate.

another question about PWP: do they work shifts or typical 9-5?

To the best of my knowledge

do PWPs spend the majority of time in one to one consultations? - probably, but also lots of meetings, supervision, admin.

do they take work home? Not commonly

do they do paid or unpaid overtime? I doubt paid overtime is an option. Likely occasional or frequent unpaid, depending on how efficient they are at admin and keeping appointments to time, and how generously they are allocated admin time and admin support.

what is the emotional impact of this job? Stressful in that you will be talking to anxious or depressed people all day which isn’t exactly uplifting. But your input would be much appreciated, and sometimes people get better, so that’s pretty awesome. It’s rough if a patient of yours does something awful though, to themself or someone else. You would get support if that happened. Also you get regular supervision where you discuss your own feelings as well as cases, it’s very helpful.

Do people burn out in the same way they do in teaching? I’m not sure about PWP specifically. In mental health generally, yes they burn out, but nowhere near as badly as in teaching. Teaching is in my view a totally unsustainable job, none of the things you are considering are anywhere near as bad.

what settings do they work in? Mostly GP surgeries, community health centres, that kind of thing. Some CAMHS community teams have PWP in-house, possibly some adult trusts too, so you’d then be in a mental health clinic of some kind.

PWPs work 9-5

Now I’m wondering if most of the patients seen by PWPs are teachers 😬🥲

seriously though a GP friend did once tell me the majority of signing off for stress she did were teachers from one well known south London academy chain

Thank you @Astromelia

@EdPsy and @biscuitcat what does the statutory work involve? If either or both of you have time to describe a typical week including the work but also details like lunch breaks (how long do you get and do you take your own food?) do you use your own car to get to different locations that your work involves? Do you do paid or unpaid overtime? Do you work less in school holidays or is it pretty consistent across the year?

And @Neolara ! Trying to keep track of the Ed psychs on this thread now. Thanks so much to everyone who answered

If it's mental health you are interested you could take a look at this program https://thinkahead.org/

It's a two-year social work program in the mental health field. There are no fees and you receive a fairly generous bursary each year.

I considered applying myself but went into mental health nursing instead.

@9outof10cats interesting thanks!

Hey,

I did a psychology conversion course (previous degree in law). I had several years of clinical and research experience but sadly never got a place for clinical psychology despite several interviews. The success rate is about 15% and many people apply several times before getting on (or giving up, like me!).

After looking at my options, I am now training in a related field (mentioned above) - funded through student loan and NHS bursary.

If you are still interested in following the clinical psychology route, here's the website for you: https://www.clinpsy.org.uk/

Good luck!

xx