The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Can you afford to get an Assistant Psychologist job in the NHS?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. Dreaming of becoming an assistant psychologist but worried about making ends

Starting point is 00:01:05 meet? You're not alone. Many aspiring psychologists face the tough reality of low pay, high living costs and the pressure to gain experience at any cost. In today's episode, we dive into the financial challenges of assistant psychologist roles, explore the hidden costs you might not have considered and discuss whether what is often considered a crucial or important career step is really accessible to everyone. If you're wondering how to balance your passion with your paycheck, then my chat with our guest today, Sam, is going to be for you. Hope you find it so useful. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. Welcome along to one of my very special episodes, which is an assistant psychologist series. Without any further ado, let's dive

Starting point is 00:01:53 right in and see just how affordable it is or isn't to be an assistant psychologist in the modern NHS. I will catch you on the other side. Hi, I just want to welcome along to the podcast today, Samantha Airey, who is a qualified counsellor. Hi, Sam. Hi, nice to see you. Yes, indeed. Thank you for reaching out to me to suggest a topic of conversation. I think I'd been discussing on my socials, assistant psychologists and kind of issues around that and kind of thinking about honorary psychologist roles, which had provoked a conversation between us about the affordability of roles like assistant psychologist hadn't we? Yeah I think working as an AP although it's great experience and it's considered you know a really normal pathway to the D.C.L.E. it comes with its pitfalls because quite a lot of the posts are full-time and yet they are quite low bandings within the NHS.

Starting point is 00:02:49 So where I'm at at the moment, I'm already a band six, so I'd have to take a pay cut to do one of those roles. Oh gosh, yes, you really would, wouldn't you? And I know that you are a mother and that you have perhaps more overheads than the people that might be at an earlier stage of their family planning. But also, you know, you're potentially competing against people who might be 21. And so as our lives progress, we do get more and more bills and regular kind of direct debits. And we're both saying that we've got children that are in

Starting point is 00:03:21 year seven of secondary school as well. And they come with their own overheads like he's got his own mobile contract and stuff now my son has so these outgoings are definitely higher you know as our lives progress but it makes me think about when I was an assistant psychologist and actually at that point my band four role was about 13 000 pounds so the rates have gone up a lot but should we have a look at the current agenda for change, hourly and yearly rates together? Yes, so I think AP roles tend to be band four or five. I think it really depends on where you are in the country. But the starting wage for that is around about £13.57. That's for a band four.

Starting point is 00:04:04 So although some might say that that's great, I guess it depends on what you've done before, like where you might have come from and what your lifestyle has been like. But for me, already nearly 40, I've worked at a band six now for the last three or four years, it's substantial pay cut to do an AP role for me. Absolutely and when we think about the living wage which is about £12 or something like that at the moment what I'm aware is of that we you know we could be getting not that dissimilar amount of money for a job where essentially no or much lower qualifications are needed with less risk, with less stress, with less kind of multidisciplinary team working. Perhaps working in a shop, for example, if you

Starting point is 00:04:51 were getting the living minimum wage, then you might even get bonus of staff discount as well. What we're asking of our assistant psychologists is that they are a graduate. They might also have a master's. These are not necessarily the same types of work that you might be expecting from somebody in a national minimum or living wage role. No, it's a position of responsibility, isn't it? We're required to do regular CPD. We're required to work in a safe way you know we're working with people's lives we're not flipping burgers and I used to do that you know we need that role but I think that maybe we're not paying people and what what they deserve and also we're seeing that in the NHS trust I work for we're struggling to get people into the roles that are necessary for the likes of inpatient, that's becoming a problem. Absolutely. I was talking to my brother the other day,

Starting point is 00:05:49 and he used to work in Marks and Spencers, and I used to work in Boots. And my starting wage was £2.97 an hour. And he said, oh, mine was more than that. Mine was about £4.50, even in those days. They always paid better, it seems. Even these days, the idea that I could be working in that role that I really loved and had a great time in, getting paid a very similar wage to that of an assistant psychologist is slightly mind-boggling. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? And in those moments when you're feeling burnt out, overwhelmed by the role and the person in front of you, should we be working in a shop instead?

Starting point is 00:06:23 You know, it makes you wonder, doesn't it? It really does. You know, why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this? And I think especially when we're looking at routes into professionally qualified psychologists, where there's no guaranteed pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it can make us question why we're doing it. But do we know what the average rent is at the moment in the UK in terms of affordability? Well national statistics for England I mean Scotland and Wales might be slightly different but it says the average rent is £1,276 but if we look at the take-home for band 4 for example monthly it's £1,885 so you've not got much wiggle room there for all your other bills and that doesn't even include things like pension deductions really you know when we're

Starting point is 00:07:13 looking at trying to diversify our workforce and have it better represent the people in our country and the people that we serve we would want a cross-section of abilities, a cross-section of kind of age range of ethnic diverse factors. But really, we are firmly putting the ball in the court of people who can afford to live on very low rent, perhaps even no rent situations by staying in their parents' homes. Absolutely. It does feel like the majority of applicants in their 20s, in fact, I looked on the alternative handbook for this year, there's only around 6% that are 35 plus and over. So it speaks volumes. I found that quite surprising, actually.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Even that I have to put it in my application that I'm a mature applicant it just feels crazy when I thought a declin was supposed to be like something that you aimed for after working in mental health for a while you know and building up experience and knowledge and taking that on to the declin it sounds like people are just going from university into that now. Absolutely. But obviously, in terms of the way that applications are screened, your personal data wouldn't be looked at and that would be held separately. But of course, it doesn't take an expert to look at the years you did your GCSEs, for example, or the years you did your A-levels to be able to work out a candidate's age and even the range of different jobs and different relevant or non-relevant clinical experiences does make it quite easy to kind of roughly work out what an applicant's age would be

Starting point is 00:08:56 yeah and of course you know this goes beyond the pay right now because many people are thinking of assistant psychologists' roles as being almost a gold standard into getting the kind of experiences, the kind of supervision, the kind of reflection, the kind of opportunities that do make it more likely that you can progress into a qualified psychologist route. So whilst we might be disadvantaging people now because they can't afford to work as an assistant, we might in essence be capping their later earnings if they can't then progress into professional qualified roles. Yeah, it can feel like we are stuck. I know that we get increments on the bandings now, but it kind of feels like I'm stuck here this is

Starting point is 00:09:45 my place now as a as a counsellor I'm in a solid band six role and I can't go anywhere unless I want to do management if the declin's not open to me you know part of our well-being at work is to feel like we've got somewhere to go somewhere to grow and professionally So it's super important, I think, and something that is kind of mixed within the talk in therapies or psychological professions arena of the NHS. That is such an important point, Sam, because actually what we know from looking at Maslow's hierarchy is that we need to think that we can kind of keep moving forwards and keep self-actualising. And, you you know looking at Dr. Claire Plumley's special series over the summer Burnout Bites if we don't feel like we're

Starting point is 00:10:31 getting that then we actually whisk boring out and burning out because we're kind of feeling stuck and stagnant and like it's all a bit futile. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think these factors are really fully considered within some of the teams. Annual reviews and the questionnaires that are routinely sent out to staff consider this, but in reality, it is much done about it. Yeah. And, you know, if and when you get onto a professional paid psychology training role, I remember going from band four to band six and essentially feeling a bit like I'd won the lottery. Whereas what I know that the trusts kind of insist on these days is that if you're starting a new role, is that you start

Starting point is 00:11:19 at the bottom of the increment for that banding if you're new to that trust. So in essence, you could go from being a band six NHS in a neighbouring trust to then starting your new role as a trainee and be financially worse off. Absolutely. And where I am up in the North West, the next trust along geographically, my job would be a band seven so it would be even more of a decrease in pay really for some I think there needs to be some consideration we shouldn't be trying to get more psychologists it's a much needed role and yet not being able to make it affordable for those staff you know the job's already hard enough we don't need life to be had too yeah and i think this you know this speaks volumes of the general sense of kind of psychology pay in the nhs of general pay across the nhs this

Starting point is 00:12:13 isn't just linked to nhs but you know i don't want this to sound like my diamond shoes are too tight but when i was an 8a in the nhs it actually was not affordable for me to go to band 8b because i was part-time and at that time it would have meant that i was actually worse off because of the way that the pension contributions were calculated so i'd be potentially doing a service lead job with more stress with more responsibility for less take-home pay which i just wasn't going to be doing. And I guess if we were looking to increase the pay or the banding for assistant psychologists and entry routes into psychology, we'd need to be thinking about what happened to the qualified routes at band seven and beyond as well. And this isn't an easy fix. This isn't a quick conversation, but this is just us shedding

Starting point is 00:13:05 some light and giving some oxygen to that. And I know that the pay freezes that kind of happened 2008 and beyond have really, really made qualified life and the routes into training and qualified life very much less gratifying. Yeah yeah and obviously with being a counsellor really the psychology route that I should in theory be going on is the counselling psychology but that isn't a funded program and that's what really highlighted all this to me I'm priced out of taking that on and someone online once said to me don't worry they hand out deodorants and and things and vouchers at uni and I was just blown away that actually it seems socially acceptable that we should be financially disadvantaging ourselves for the greater

Starting point is 00:13:58 good of becoming a psychologist um mad oh gosh don't worry we're not going to pay you but here's a free roll on you know enjoy that carry that around in your bag at least you won't smell when you're really stressed you know offering all these services to our to our clients that said i don't want people who are listening to this to feel dissuaded necessarily. If you are a trained counsellor, for example, it's not impossible that you can get a funded training route to be, for example, a clinical psychologist. There is no guaranteed route into this. There never was. We need to look at broadening people's experiences, still encouraging them to have opportunities to kind of reflect, to be well supervised, to be thinking about access to different clinical populations and different skills. I know that's a separate conversation, but it also feels like

Starting point is 00:14:56 an important one. But I hear what you're saying is it's very much harder when you've got stable predictable factors and dependence to get what would feel like a more reliable path to something like the clinical psychology doctorate absolutely it makes me wonder what the reliable path is you know it's so different isn't it for lots of people mine's certainly been unconventional with doing the conversion masters to to get qualified even to apply but I think as well it's it's kind of making me think that it's broadening my horizons it's making me think about how I can improve my situation academically clinically financially and how I can do workarounds I think ultimately it'll make me a stronger clinician but when you're having those days where it feels not affordable or you

Starting point is 00:15:52 feel boxed out you know then it's tough isn't it? It is and you know before I became a mother I could have tightened my own purse strings and just thought well well, I won't buy new shoes and I'm okay to just keep wearing these trousers to work. But when you are a mother, sometimes you have to obviously buy things like new school shoes every year and new uniforms. But also, you don't always want to be the mother that's saying, no, I can't afford that. And I know that will resonate with you because, you know, even in myself as a mother, you know, children want all the time, but when it comes down to need, you know, actually they do need something. Or if even the relentless one pounds that you've got to take into school for, I don't know, whatever day it is this week, there's not always going to be, it's not a magic porridge pot of money. There's not always going to be it's not a magic porridge pot of money there's not always

Starting point is 00:16:45 going to be that money there and you are just more strapped for cash when you've got more mouths to feed absolutely i try to use it as a life lesson i suppose for my children to budget and to think about where it's best place to spend money i think that's a life skill that we don't always learn in schools or I didn't but yeah you've obviously always got to keep one eye on the table the food what's coming in and also you know like doing my master's I needed to buy a laptop you know and now that's pretty much out of date so if I do get on the doctor, I'll need another one. There's always something that's competing with day-to-day finances. And I think if I was in my 20s and I still lived at home, that'd be all right. I probably would make that work. But now

Starting point is 00:17:38 you've got to spend a bit more time thinking about it. Absolutely. To my knowledge, no doctor no doctorate course gives their new trainees a laptop whereas in converse when my nephew started a media course at his university he was given a macbook or is even a mac i don't know some kind of expensive tech but you do not get that even though it's going to be an essential criteria of your job you don't get given that yet if you are being employed as a band seven you would be getting probably a laptop that you can use to take home and work from home or work remotely at different sites whereas to my knowledge that isn't routinely done in doctoral training courses. No I don't know much about that but I can assume not and but even bringing it back

Starting point is 00:18:27 to the AP roles I've just interviewed for one and part of the criteria was to have a car so for me and my family we need two cars for that very kind of predicament that just getting in around the northwest you know and but if I didn't have that second car like many families don't what would I have done again I'm priced out Anna of applying for that role absolutely and even the cost of insuring a car these days especially if you are in your early 20s that is outlandishly expensive and of course you know for the trainee psychology doctorate in clinical psychology it's a prerequisite that you have a driving license and access to a vehicle and that is a whole nother ethical conversation but it certainly continues this kind of entitled

Starting point is 00:19:20 affordability discussion too yeah when i did the application for the first time last year it really got me to think about my social graces and you know my privileges and although I'm more aware I kind of think being in this industry it's feeding the privilege you know it's kind of I don't know if that's the right way of putting it but we almost have to stay privileged to stay in this line of work yeah and there's only so much reflection that we can do you know the maths is not mathing as they say in the states which is one of my all-time favorite sayings i have to say the maths is not mathing like you can't suddenly reflect differently on it and have more money in your purse like you know only so many ways you

Starting point is 00:20:05 can tighten your belt to be able to stay within this profession. And I know that, you know, someone who's perhaps getting on to a doctoral training route that might have had two, maybe three assistant psychologist roles at band four, maybe tipping into band five. But in order to get the relevant experience roles, perhaps when they were 21, they did some access routes, which would have been probably less than band four. So, you know, you might be looking at five or six years of band three, band four, band five work before you can progress to a band six role and beyond. Yeah. And that's not even taken into consideration,

Starting point is 00:20:42 the kind of volunteering work that we might have to do or, you know, want to do. But I can't volunteer anymore. I just don't have the time or the spare cash to allow childcare to do that in order to have it on my CV, in order to gain enough experience to be able to apply for AP roles or the D-Climb. Gosh, isn't that an interesting moral debate that actually someone in a volunteer role is actually paying to be there because of the overheads they have to allow their presence? Oh, that is so big. And I love the idea of volunteering volunteering I'm really passionate about it I believe that we should we should all try to do something you know no matter what it is that we're into to give back but like I say right now just not I'm not able to do that but even in terms of like my counselling career there's an expectation that you'll do hours for free to build

Starting point is 00:21:46 up the amount that you have to do to qualify I think I don't think that's standalone for counselling either I think you have to do a certain amount of hours for CBT therapists again it just feeds into this idea of like I think we're undervalued and I think the way that we care so much and and the people that are doing these roles you know we're kind of taken advantage of you know we want to do it so no one really stands up to say actually you need more money or you need more pay or recognition. Absolutely they know that they've got us over a barrel so to speak because we do care and we are moved by the distress of others and so we are more likely to be able to well to keep tolerating bad treatment and i don't think this podcast episode is going to be you know it's not

Starting point is 00:22:39 going to change anything and that's that's kind of a sad admission but it will at least have people hopefully become more aware of the ethical dilemmas not just of the honorary roles which of course was a separate podcast episode but there's actually also ethical dilemmas and quandaries in paid work as entry routes into psychology yeah i think it's it's everywhere isn't it and not parts of the industry i think ultimately you just have to decide what you're willing to accept and what workarounds you can decide upon for you and your family and what's best for you and run with that you know despite you know sometimes i'll have a great month financially sometimes it'll be a little bit more tough but that's the same for everyone

Starting point is 00:23:25 isn't it and and we just have to cut our cloth accordingly yes indeed well i hope that your role as a qualified counsellor is going really well for you and i'm excited to see where you get i'd love to know the outcome of your assistant psychologist interview once you hear back from them thank you so much for you know opening up this conversation and encouraging not just myself but our our watchers on youtube and our listeners um wherever people get their podcasts on this really important consideration are you welcome i think it's important to talk about money we don't talk about it enough it's one of those to be's isn't it but it's um it's part of the the journey into the declimb okay just before we finish sam is there anything

Starting point is 00:24:11 that we've not spoken about that you think might be useful for our our viewers to to consider i think it's important to consider that our journey starts from when we start university and I was first generation in my family to go to university and my mum rightly or wrongly just said do something that you enjoy do art and so I did but then when I started to grow as a person and realize what I wanted to do and how I wanted to work in mental health financially I couldn't do another undergrad and then it wasn't until years later that I realized I could get another pot of money to do a master's and do a conversion but all of this has impacted on my journey to the decline financially I just think we kind of forget that some of our financial story starts years before where we are now. It really does. And actually, in terms of

Starting point is 00:25:06 what we think about as money trauma, you know, perhaps we're carrying stuff from future generations as well for kind of what we could or should be doing, what we could or should be earning and, you know, whether people like us should be at university even. Really, really important. Thank you so much for your time, Sam. Thank you. Thank you so much to my guest today, Sam. I hope you found this to be an interesting and insightful conversation. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Please do like, subscribe, share with your friends. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please do rate and review the show. Spotify, you can rate. And I would love your feedback. Come and connect

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Starting point is 00:26:31 of the membership. So it is incredible value. be your guide. With this podcast at your side, you'll be on your way to being qualified. It's the Aspiring Psychologist Podcast with Dr. Marianne Trent. my name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner I read the clinical psychologist collective book I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist it just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me of confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself so if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me, you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Can you afford to get an Assistant Psychologist job in the NHS?

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