Highly Specialist Clinical Psychologist

Job overview

The post-holder will work as a member of the multidisciplinary team within the Brent & Harrow Perinatal Mental Health Service, providing specialist psychological assessment and evidence-based interventions for women experiencing a range of mental health, social and emotional difficulties during the perinatal period. Interventions will be adapted to the needs of women and their infants and will include individual and group-based work within the community.

The post-holder will contribute psychological perspectives to assessment, formulation, care planning and risk management, and provide specialist advice and consultation to MDT colleagues and the wider professional network. They will also provide appropriate support and signposting to families and carers.

Working autonomously within professional guidelines and service policies, the post-holder will participate in team meetings, case discussions and reflective practice, and contribute to the development of effective, recovery-oriented models of care.

The post-holder will work closely with relevant local services, including maternity, Talking Therapies, mental health and children’s social care services, to support coordinated and seamless care pathways.

They will contribute to service development, audit and research relevant to perinatal mental health, and provide shared clinical supervision to trainee and Band 7 psychologists and other professionals.

Main duties of the job

To provide highly specialist psychological assessments of women referred

to the PMHS and meeting criteria for specialist perinatal psychological interventions. The specialist assessment will be 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. The assessments will also include a formal evaluation of the parent infant relationship within the family/social network.

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, across the full range of care settings.

To be responsible for developing and delivering evidence-based treatment protocol for severe and complex psychological disorders occurring in the perinatal period (e.g. severe maternal OCD, depression, anxiety, medically unexplained symptoms) and, when appropriate, for parent-infant relationship disturbances (e.g. Video Interactive Guidance). Adjusting and refining psychological formulations, drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both: Theoretical and therapeutic models.

Highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and intervention communicating with the referral agents and others involved with the care on a regular basis.

To develop and provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan in accordance with NICE guidelines and evidence-based practice.

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 act as a Lead Professional, including for cases when initial comprehensive assessments are carried out by the post holder, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the client’s needs, co-ordinating the work of others involved with care, arranging client’s care reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, her family and all others involved in care; and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

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 in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures with the aim of overall risk reduction.

To ensure that practice operates within the adult and children safeguarding frameworks.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning 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 provide expertise, advice and support to facilitate the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the treatment team.

To provide comprehensive psychological reports and to carry out psychological testing as required by the service or the courts.

To attend and contribute to appropriate MDT meetings within the Perinatal service.

To assist in the coordination and running of therapeutic groups, if the service model has capacity for this.

Applicant requirements

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.