Job overview
Principal Psychologist will provide clinical leadership and expertise to our Family Safeguarding Team. They will work with clients, their families/ carers in providing a high quality, specialist applied psychology services.
The post will be based within the Family Safeguarding Service of Surrey County Council (permanently seconded from SABP). As the Principal Psychologist, you will jointly lead a small team of psychologists, alongside a team of social workers and other professionals, working with parents where there is high risk of severe parenting problems including maltreatment and neglect.
Our ground-breaking family safeguarding model will bring together all the professionals we need, under one roof, to provide intensive support to parents to address the mental health, substance misuse and domestic abuse that place children at risk of significant harm. An important focus of our model is to invest in training all team members to a high standard in motivational interviewing, to engage parents in contributing to their own assessments of risk and change, and to make group interventions and strengthening relationships support part of our everyday work. Our team works in a trauma informed way, and offers trauma-focused and trauma-informed interventions to parents.
Main duties of the job
- To plan and deliver a highly specialist psychology service in the family safeguarding service and to oversee its clinical governance.
- To be responsible for the professional leadership and continued development of a team and/or service area.
- To lead in the supervision and contribute to Individual Performance Review/Appraisal of psychology staff, as required.
- To ensure that the healthcare needs of people using services are communicated to and work in partnership with service commissioners and other healthcare providers for the best outcomes.
- To advocate and represent the service.
- To be responsible for the development and implementation of appropriate policies, protocols and care pathways
- Contribute to appropriate staff recruitment and contribute to the wider strategic plans regarding psychology recruitment.
- To demonstrate highly specialist expertise and specialist psychological skills such as specialist psychological assessments, formulation, therapeutic interventions and consultation to support people with complex needs
- To act as supervisor/teacher in teaching, facilitating and supporting pre-registration students and junior personnel and to participate in the audit of educational placements.
- To influence and develop team cultures that support and encourage innovation, creativity, partnership working and curiosity.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please review the Job Description for even further information about the jobs main responsibility details.
Person specification
Experience
Essential
- Extensive post qualification clinical experience in relevant clinical setting
- Experience of leading in clinical practice, service development or project work
- Experience of supervising trainees, assistant psychologists, qualified clinical/counselling psychologists and others providing psychological therapies
- Experience of implementing change following audit and service evaluation
- Experience of advising other professionals on complex psychological issues and risk
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctorate in Clinical or Counselling Psychology qualification or equivalent
- Completion of an appropriate clinical supervision course
Desirable
- Additional academic clinical qualification relevant to area of work
- Additional leadership/management study
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for 8B Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist -Part time with Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust in Leatherhead, South East, England. It is listed as a Band 8 Psychologist role. The advertised salary is £68,852 - £79,638 Incl. 5% Fringe HCAS, pa, pro rata.. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 30 Jun 2026.
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