Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist or CBT Therapist

Job overview

We are seeking an experienced Practitioner Psychologist or CBT therapist with a passion for perinatal care to work in our perinatal trauma and loss team (PTLT). The post holder will spend 1 day with our psychology led Perinatal Trauma and Loss Team (0.2 WTE). PTLT provides specialist psychological support and treatment to women and pregnant people, those who have experienced pregnancy or birth, their families and support network who are affected by severe tokophobia, perinatal trauma or baby loss.

The post holder will join an experienced and friendly team of psychological therapists who provide a range of highly specialist psychological interventions for service users under the care of the Perinatal Mental Health Service and PTLT. A key aspect of this role is to provide highly specialist psychological care to parents (and their infants) experiencing moderate to severe mental health difficulties. An ability to assess and manage risk in this context is therefore crucial.

Alongside their psychology and psychotherapy colleagues they will also work to enhance the work of the MDT by embedding a wider framework of psychologically informed care that can recognise and respond to psychological needs of both parents and infants arising within a perinatal context in a timely and effective manner.

The post holder will have a proven interest in working with parents and their infants and knowledge of infant and adult mental health.

Main duties of the job

This post offers an opportunity to join the PTLT and be involved in service developments in line with the NHS Long Term Plan. The opening is for a Band 8a (0.2 WTE) Highly Specialist Team Clinical or Counselling Psychologist or CBT Therapist.

If appointed, you will join a passionate and experienced MDT and support the provision of our community based specialist psychology and psychotherapy services for women who are pregnant, postnatal, or have experienced a loss and are presenting with a wide range of complex and severe mental health problems, as well as systemic support for their partners. The role involves helping to formalise referral pathways, delivering evidence based assessment and treatments as well as attending MDT meetings and close liaison and consultation with other professionals involved in a service user’s network of care.

There will be opportunities for attending specialist training and forums, providing supervision and consultation as well as developing an area of specialist interest and one's own style of working.

There will be a strong focus on supporting the continued development of a psychologically informed trauma focus of care within maternity services as well as opportunities to provide supervision, training, and utilise research skills for audits, service evaluation, and service development.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients 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 interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.

2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy in the treatment of mental health conditions as recommended by NICE guidelines.

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

4. 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.

5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.

6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals, as appropriate, to assist in the formulation, diagnosis and treatment of clients presenting with mental health needs related to trauma and loss.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information 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, integrating the contribution of other professionals on the basis of client need.

10. To work jointly with psychological therapists based in community teams, to plan and hand over the psychological assessment and treatment of patients that may continue after discharge from the Maternal Mental Health Service.