NR Times speaks to Dr Graeme Flaherty-Jones, consultant clinical psychologist and clinical director at Clarity Psychology, which won the Therapy Provider of the Year title at our 2023 awards.
NR: What does this award mean to you and the team?
GFJ: It is with immense gratitude and humility that we receive the award for therapy provider of the year, in a category with so many esteemed providers. We are thankful to those who nominated us for the award and for believing that we deserve such an honor.
In Clarity Psychology we strive each day to deliver a service that we would be proud for our loved ones to receive. To have our value-based approach to excellence recognised in this way is very special. It reinforces to the whole team exactly why we operate the way we do in Clarity Psychology; to make meaningful change happen through exceptional person-centered compassionate care.
We have tremendous respect for those working within our neurorehabilitation community and to be commended in such a way brings an enormous sense of pride and gratitude, which we will carry with us when continuing to deliver on our values.
Tell us a little about the background to Clarity Psychology and your ethos
Back in 2009, surrounded by books and sitting in a local coffee shop, a dear friend and I imagined what it would be like for us or our family to receive the very finest psychology service.
No detail was too small in creating the mental imagery of what it would be like to have our clients leave each session feeling valued, nurtured, and having received the most exceptional quality treatment possible. As we told imaginary stories of what this perfect service would be like, we arrived at what became our core values:
• Every client deserves an exceptional quality service.
• Take time to develop trusting relationships.
• Put people first and respect individual wishes to be truly person-centred.
Though much time has passed since cultivating this vision for Clarity Psychology, not a day has gone by where we have not sought to stay true to these values.
There is something reassuring and grounding in having such clear values within the team; they are our compass point for all decisions and the foundation of excellence in all that we do.
It is often joked that I can be quite selective in who I bring into the clarity team, but in truth, I am! In leading healthcare teams and organisations, I’ve learnt firsthand that your people are the single most important part of delivering the highest quality care.
Ensuring that every member of our team brings the right values is not just important, it is pivotal to everything that we do within Clarity Psychology. This is what allows us to deliver timely, person-centred, compassionate care where it matters most.
We are unwavering in our belief that every single person we have the privilege of supporting, should feel valued and experience exceptional quality treatment from start to finish. In practice this client centred culture starts the very moment we are approached to consider working with an individual, family or team.
We deliberately pause and take a considered approach to identifying if we are the right people to deliver the best possible service for that client, and if so, who in our team is best placed to provide this outstanding treatment.
WATCH: Lynne Carrick-Leary, of law firm Irwin Mitchell, which sponsored the Therapy Provider of the Year Award, talks to NR Times’ Deborah Johnson about the category and winner.
Most professionals who bring a specialist skill set know that they can be valuable to clients in neurorehabilitation, but in Clarity Psychology I make it a personal mission to ensure that every one of our team know how much they are valued as individuals.
I am a great believer that feeling valued as well as valuable is important to ensure we can transfer that feeling to our clients, so that they too feel truly valued in the work we carry out together.
As a team we have also worked hard to develop a culture of psychological safety and shared learning to ensure that we can always ask questions of how to better our practice and deliver cutting edge evidence-based intervention for our clients.
In offering the highest quality neuropsychological and psychological rehabilitation to our clients we have fortunately had many opportunities to grow and expand our services.
While each opportunity to expand is a compliment to the team, much care and consideration is given to any developments, to keep our core ethos central. Expand and grow too quickly and I am certain that we would compromise what makes Clarity Psychology so special; the accessible, responsive, person-centred approach we have become known for.
In staying true to these values for over 13 years, we have seen our service evolve, where Clarity Psychology now proudly provides neuropsychological and psychological interventions across a range of sectors including neurorehabilitation, mental health, autism assessment and support, and more recently as an NHS subcontractor for memory assessment clinics.
Regardless of the context, we take great pride in knowing that every client will always receive the same exceptional person-centered compassionate care.
The judges unanimously praised your truly client-centric focus and emphasis on identity – how central are they to how you work?
Within Clarity Psychology we believe that compassionate connection is the heartbeat of rehabilitation and change. Compassion is therefore always the starting point for building a positive therapeutic relationship with our client, their family, and those who matter most in their lives.
With compassion and connection, we build trust to understand what is important to the person, both in terms of what they may have lost and what they may wish to gain within their rehabilitation. It is with this trust and understanding that we can be truly client-centered in all that we do for those we serve.
As professionals in Clarity Psychology, we bring a wealth of knowledge and experience, however we never let this come before sensitively listening to our clients to understand who they are and what they are experiencing.
As a wise client once told me “assumptions are effectively ear plugs” that can prevent understanding what matters most to clients and families.
Everyone in our team understands that it is hard to discover what is right for clients if we think we already know! Adopting an approach of respectful curiosity is therefore central to developing a shared understanding of each client’s needs and goals for rehabilitation.
No amount of theory, research or learning can bring about meaningful change if it only focuses on the problem. In Clarity Psychology we work with people, not just problems, to understand what kind of change is most important.
As individuals begin to reconstruct their lives following injury or illness, many will experience an alteration in their sense of identity.
For example, we know that around three quarters of people who experience brain injury report some degree of change in how they feel about their identity.
The way in which an individual believes that they are perceived by others may suddenly become incongruent with their self-concept (“who am I”).
Through the development of a trusting relationship with the individual, genuine understanding of their needs and goals for change, we seek to find ways of sensitively reconnecting the individual to a true sense of self within their rehabilitation.
Holding the client at the absolute centre of their rehabilitation, often involves more than just our 1:1 direct work with the individual. We also make space to help those we work with in multidisciplinary teams to hold the client at the center of our thinking and planning.
This may be done through supporting teams in formulating an understanding of the client’s needs, goal setting, highlighting our evidence, or thinking about how we achieve outcomes for the client.
In the same sense we always recognise and embrace the wealth of knowledge and understanding that each member of the multidisciplinary team brings to better connect us to the client, their identity and what is meaningful for their rehabilitation. Working side by side with our colleagues, Clarity Psychology will always do whatever it takes to remove barriers that get in the way of connecting the team to the client or family and their needs.
We would like to finally thank Neuro Rehab Times for shining a light on the outstanding practice that so many providers deliver each day for our clients within the neurorehabilitation community. As part of this community Clarity Psychology holds its reputation for delivering exceptional quality services with great pride and this award inspires our ongoing commitment to continue living by our values to bring about life changing outcomes for clients.
Nominations for the NR Times Awards 2024 open on 5th February. Watch this space for details.
