Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Job overview

Clinical / Counselling Psychologist. Band 8a.

Hertfordshire Community Perinatal Team (0.5WTE, 18.75 hours per week)

Maternity Leave Cover, up to 12 months.

Applications are invited for a part-time Clinical or Counselling Psychologist post in specialist perinatal services, working within the thriving and well-regarded multidisciplinary Hertfordshire Community Perinatal Team (CPT), to cover a period of maternity leave, up to twelve months.

The CPT serves the county of Hertfordshire, supporting women with complex and significant mental health needs, through pregnancy and the postnatal period as well as working closely with maternity staff and providers of primary, secondary and inpatient care.

The post-holder will have varied responsibilities; offering psychological assessments, the delivery of individual and group evidence-based psychological interventions in order to support the mother-infant relationship, offering supervision and reflective practice to a range of junior psychology colleagues and the wider MDT, service development and audit, teaching and training to MDT and healthcare colleagues as well as liaison and consultation.

Main duties of the job

• To contribute to the ongoing running and development of a highly specialised perinatal psychology service for women who are pregnant, or up to 2 years postnatal, with, or at risk of, a wide range of mental health problems including complex and severe difficulties, such as Complex Trauma, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

• To aid in the assessment, formulation and care planning of women in the perinatal period, as well as the mother-infant dyad and to provide and evaluate a range of high-quality, evidence-based perinatal-specific psychological interventions; individual and group, for service users and families. Experience across a range of therapeutic models is essential including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and other models such as Compassion Focused Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, EMDR, Systemic Therapy and Mindfulness.

• To be responsible for offering liaison and consultation to members of the multi-disciplinary team, colleagues within the inpatient mother and baby unit, the community psychology and psychotherapy service, local maternity services, as well as carers and other agencies on matters related to the psychological needs and issues relevant to the service and its users

• To offer high-quality clinical and professional supervision to junior psychology colleagues and trainee clinical/counselling psychologists
• To utilise research skills for audit, policy, and service development and research within the service

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

HERTFORDSHIRE PARTERNSHIP NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

JOB DESCRIPTION

Title:                      Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Maternity Leave Cover, up to 12 months.

Grade:                   AfC band 8a (applications at band 7 may also be considered)

Service:                 Community Perinatal Team (CPT)

Working hours:      0.5WTE

Operationally Accountable to:     Principal Clinical Psychologist, CPT

Professionally Accountable to:     ACMHS Lead

Professionally Accountable for:   Junior psychological therapists, trainee Clinical / Counselling Psychologists, Assistant Psychologists and psychology students.

Base:                       Prospect House, Peace Drive, Watford, WD18 3XE, and community locations across the county.

Job Summary:

• To contribute to the ongoing running and development of a highly specialised perinatal psychology service for women who are pregnant, or up to 2 years postnatal, with, or at risk of, a wide range of mental health problems including complex and severe difficulties, such as Complex Trauma, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

• To aid in the assessment, formulation and care planning of women in the perinatal period, as well as the mother-infant dyad and to provide and evaluate a range of high-quality, evidence-based perinatal-specific psychological interventions; individual and group, for service users and families. Experience across a range of therapeutic models is essential including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and other models such as Compassion Focussed Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, EMDR, Systemic Therapy and Mindfulness

• To be responsible for offering liaison and consultation to members of the multi-disciplinary team, liaising with colleagues within the inpatient mother and baby unit, the community psychology and psychotherapy service, local maternity services, as well as non-professional carers and other agencies on matters related to the psychological needs and issues relevant to the service and its users

• To offer high-quality clinical and professional supervision to junior psychology colleagues and trainee clinical/counselling psychologists

• To utilise research skills for audit, policy, and service development and research within the service

• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of team policies and procedures

• The post holder will be required to commute across sites and attend home visits, as well as offer some remote therapy options

The post holder will need to be HCPC registered. A driver’s license and access to a car is essential.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Clinical Responsibility

• To provide specialist perinatal psychological assessments of clients referred to the team, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s complex mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings
• To assess and formulate any difficulties within the mother-infant relationship, including understanding the impact of this on maternal mental health and confidence, and liaise with the MDT in order to plan how to meet these needs
• To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions including CBT for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses, adjusting and refining the psychological formulation according to the evolving clinical scenario
• To assist in the development and delivery of group interventions for parents with mental health difficulties delivering evidence based psychological therapies (such as cognitive behaviour therapy, compassion focused therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy) according to the service user’s presenting difficulties
• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group. This evidence-based approach includes monitoring outcomes, modifying and adapting interventions drawn from a range of theoretical models
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility within HCPC guidelines for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans
• To provide perinatal-specific specialist psychological liaison and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan, facilitating the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the teams to the client
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group
• To be familiar with safeguarding policies and be able to share concerns with the team
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients, including perinatal-specific considerations of risk, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management
• To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry and recording

Supervision, teaching and training:

·     To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from local senior professional colleagues

• To provide regular and high-quality professional and clinical supervision of junior psychology colleagues, trainee and assistant clinical psychologists, as well as the supervision of psychological work and ideas implemented by other MDT colleagues
• To contribute to the development of perinatal-specific knowledge and skills base within the team and wider Trust by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in perinatal psychology and national policy developments and by implementing knowledge gained
• To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision, including in-house perinatal specific training within the CPT and other local teams
• To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychologists, as appropriate
• To undergo and maintain up-to-date Trust mandatory training requirements

Leadership and Staff Management Responsibility:

• To be involved in the short-listing and interviewing of assistant, honorary or junior psychology staff when needed

Working Relationships and Communication Requirements of the Job

• To promote and maintain good working relationships with psychology- and multi-disciplinary colleagues within and across teams throughout the Trust and agencies within the wider county setting
• To promote and maintain good working relationships with clients, their families, carers and other external agencies
• To communicate effectively and skilfully highly complex and sensitive information with clients and carers, taking into account sensitive cultural barriers to communication, concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care
• To communicate effectively and skillfully with other professionals within and across teams and the Trust, statutory and non statutory agencies/partners relevant to the client’s care and management (including for the purposes of safeguarding and liaison)

Liaises with:

ACMHS Lead Psychologist

CPT Principal Perinatal Clinical Psychologist (supervisor)

CPT Service Manager and Team Leaders

CPT Consultant Psychiatrist

Junior Doctors

Social Workers

CPNs

OTs

Inpatient mother and baby unit team

Local maternity and health visiting services

Managers and Clinical Staff

Other Psychological Services staff within HPFT

Research, Service Evaluation and Development

• To contribute to perinatal-specific service development projects within the CPT, wider Trust and other relevant agencies as required. This can involve contributing to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the service operational policies or other organizational issues, by initiating and using one’s professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit
• To identify any aspects of the service which need to be improved and to advise both service and professional management on appropriate changes
• To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and developing services
• To contribute to the development of services through proposing, initiating, undertaking and supervising service evaluation and audit. This includes the development of outcome measurement, assessment/implementation and assisting other staff in the implementation of same
• To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles