Psychological Therapist (Perinatal)

Job overview

We are seeking an enthusiastic psychological therapist (0.8 WTE) with a passion for perinatal care and infant mental health to join our specialist community perinatal mental health service on a fixed term basis (6 months).

We encourage applications from qualified practitioner psychologists or CBT therapists looking for an opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills in a specialist perinatal context.  Secondment arrangements are welcomed.

The successful candidate will have a proven interest in perinatal mental health – direct experience of working within a specialist perinatal setting is desirable but not essential.  Appropriate specialist clinical and professional supervision and will be made available.

You 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 Team. 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 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 recognize and respond to psychological needs of both parents and infants arising within a perinatal context in a timely and effective manner.

Main duties of the job

• To provide specialist psychotherapeutic assessments and interventions to service users and their infants of the Perinatal mental health service.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for managing an identified caseload of parents and infants with complex psychological problems, including assessment of risk and safeguarding adults and babies
• To enable staff and service users from all backgrounds to flourish by working together to create a psychologically safe and responsive environment, ensuring the team operates from an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory perspective at all times
• To provide consultation as appropriate to other members of the MDT and wider professional networks involved in a family’s care.
• To undertake service evaluation, research and policy development
• To work collaboratively and flexibly as a member of the multi-disciplinary team and contribute to a psychologically informed framework of working across the service.
• To actively contribute to perinatal care plans, providing a psychological perspective, which may require attendance at pre-birth and post-birth planning meetings

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• To support the provision of highly specialist psychological assessments and interventions for service users and their infants under the care of the Perinatal Mental Health Service.
• Where appropriate to supervise and support the psychological assessment and therapy provided by trainee and assistant psychological therapists and other clinical members of the team or allied health professionals who provide psychologically based care and treatment to parents and infants.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines.
• To contribute to the on-going development and evaluation of the service.
• To contribute to teaching and training on aspects of adult and infant mental health in a perinatal context.
• To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s performance (against defined key performance indicators), operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
• To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.