Senior Clinical Psychologist / Applied Psychologist Perinatal

NHFT have an exciting opportunity to join our expanding perinatal psychology pathway. NHFT has an established award-winning Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service which has expanded in line with the Long Term Plan for Mental Health.

We are looking for a Senior Clinical Psychologist/ Applied Psychologist who has skills, experience and interest in working with women/birthing people experiencing perinatal mental health conditions including post-natal depression, post-partum psychosis and maternal OCD. This is a multi-disciplinary service with lots of opportunities for joint working and service development. Psychological interventions are provided on both a group and 1:1 basis and include compassion focused therapy, CBT, EMDR and IPT. Both remote and face-to-face interventions are available.

The service was selected as one of 10 Early Implementer sites to deliver a Maternal Mental Health Service (MMHS) which is a psychology lead provision. This service has now been running for almost 3 years alongside the SPMHS.

Main duties of the job

The postholder for this position will fulfil the following role:

1. Senior Clinical Psychologist/ Applied Psychologist

To provide a specialist perinatal psychological intervention to women experiencing or at risk of experiencing moderate to severe mental health conditions in the perinatal period.

To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on women's psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams' policies and procedures.

To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

The post-holder will help with identifying gaps in the service and assisting with service improvement and developing pathways of care to meet the service needs in line with National and Local strategies and evidence-based best practice.

About us

There are a significant number of psychologists employed within the Trust working across different specialties and there are excellent opportunities for professional development through regular monthly psychology meetings and active peer supervision networks. The Trust has good links with both Oxford and Leicester Doctoral training courses.

We are proud of the Psychology provision within the Trust, and feedback has consistently been that we have a well-developed Psychology network in the Trust which offers a strong sense of professional identity, support and strategic influence. Psychology and psychological approaches are highly valued in the Trust, and Psychologists have the opportunity to shape clinical and organisational strategy as well as provide clinical services. We believe that supporting and involving our staff means that they enjoy their work more, and that our clinical services are better as a result.

NHFT is an Outstanding rated integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools. We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

Job description

Job responsibilities

The postholder will hold a clinical caseload including complex cases, support clinical staff through training and clinical practice, provide clinical supervision and line management to band 7 colleagues, be responsible for leading on an area of service development and contributing to the management and operations of psychological interventions within the SPMHS. The postholder will support the psychology management team and develop clinical expertise in perinatal psychology.

The postholder will provide advice and consultation on clients' psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and will work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Trust and Services policies and procedures. The postholder will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the service.

NHFT welcomes applications from people, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status or pregnancy or maternity status. We would encourage applications from groups who are currently underrepresented in the organisation. In particular, applications from disabled people (with both visible and non-visible disabilities), people from black and minority ethnic communities and lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT) people.

NHFT is committed to building a diverse workforce, ensuring staff are treated fairly at work and ensuring all staff have the learning and development they need on equality in order to undertake their job role. We aim to use monitoring information provided by our staff and by job applicants to ensure that we do not discriminate in employment and to use this information to plan any Positive Action to address inequality. NHFT supports three staff equality networks to help us to develop our equality practice, as well as providing peer support for staff. These are: NHFT Staff Disability & Allies Network / NHFT BME Staff Development Network / NHFT LGBT & Allies Network.

Person Specification

Knowledge and Experience

Essential

• Relevant qualification(s) as required on the Job Description
• Substantial post-qualification experience of working in a mental health, providing NICE compliant interventions
• Experience of leadership and service development within the NHS.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a range of physical and mental health conditions and across care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, particularly trauma.
• Experience of interdisciplinary working.
• Meeting the CPD requirements for ongoing accreditation with the relevant professional body, or an alternative agreed by the Principal Psychologist.
• Experience of supervising other psychological therapist practitioners within a clinical mental health service.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision of staff from a range of clinical backgrounds.

Desirable

• Experience of working with severe and complex mental health difficulties during the perinatal period.
• Experience of risk assessment and risk management strategies and their application to practice, particularly in the perinatal period.
• Experience of the applications of psychological interventions in different contexts.
• Parent Infant Therapy/VIG/EMDR
• Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Training

Skills and Abilities

Essential

• Broad knowledge of specialist mental health services of mothers and their infants and the wider network of mental health services in the NHS.
• Knowledge of policies and procedures relating to Child Protection.
• Knowledge and understanding of diversity and equality issues and their application in perinatal mental health services.
• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies relevant to the perinatal period.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professionals colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessments, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Skills creating and delivering presentations and training programmes. Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• Formal training in supervision of other psychologists.

Desirable

• Experience of leading and carrying out research projects and interpreting data using statistical analyses.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

Employer details

Employer name

Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust

Address

Campbell House, Northampton or Rectory Road Clinic, Rushden
Campbell Square
Northampton
NN1 3EB

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

270-TF112-MH-I