Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

The Clinical Health Psychology Department at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital are looking to recruit a Clinical Psychologist to work in Critical Care and Neonatal services. The post holder will be working alongside other more senior Clinical Psychologists well established into these services.

Applicants should hold the relevant professional qualifications and demonstrate a range of skills and expertise. Experience of working in a health setting (in-patient and out-patient) with individuals with long-term health conditions will be welcomed. The successful candidate will be enthusiastic, motivated and demonstrate a commitment to ongoing personal and professional development.

Applications from Trainee Clinical Psychologists, due to qualify this year are encouraged to apply.

Please contact Dr Emma Twigg (Consultant Clinical Psychologist) to discuss further on (0151) 2525586. Provisional interview date is set for Friday 15th August 2025.

Main duties of the job

To work as part of Clinical Health Psychology team to provide psychological support to young people with acute and chronic health needs and their families. To provide highly specialist paediatric psychological and neuropsychological assessment at the same time as offering advice and consultation on the psychological care of children and families to non-psychologist colleagues in health and other agencies.  This will involve being clinically responsible for complex therapeutic, and risk management work with clients who may be highly vulnerable, at risk, suicidal or aggressive.  This work to be undertaken autonomously within the professional guidelines and overall frame work of the services policies and procedures.  To be regularly responsible for providing training placements for trainee Clinical Psychologists.  To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the service.  To collaboratively identify service priorities and take the lead on agreed elements of service development and delivery.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

See job description for full details - main clinical responsibilities below:

To provide highly specialist psychological assessments of children and families referred to the service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured observations and semi-structured interviews with children, adolescents, family members and others involved in children’s and young people’s care.

To make judgements involving highly complex facts which require analysis, interpretation and comparison to a range of options. To formulate and implement plans of specialist psychological treatment and/or management of children and young people’s mental health problems, based on an appropriate multi-factorial and multi-theoretical psychological understanding of the individual and/or family’s problems and employing methods based upon current evidence-based practice, across the full range of care settings.

To be responsible for undertaking a range of psychological therapeutic interventions employed individually and in synthesis with individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors regarding historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To exercise autonomous professional judgement and responsibility for the psychological management of children and families including assessment, formulation, intervention, discharge and effective communication of these plans with referrers and other  multi-agency professionals involved in the care of the child and family on a regular basis.

To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to the multi-disciplinary formulation of appropriate therapeutic approaches or intervention plans, and be involved in, or oversee and co-ordinate specialist psychological aspects of their implementation in collaboration with other staff.

To undertake psychologically based risk assessment and management for individual children and families and to provide advice on the psychological aspects of risk assessment and management to other professions.

To provide and receive in a skilled and sensitive manner, highly complex, sensitive and sometimes contentious information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans to children and families in an empathic and supportive way, using the highest levels of interpersonal skills in situations which could be highly emotive and sometimes antagonistic.

To effectively monitor the progress of both uni- and multi-disciplinary interventions