We are excited to offer this opportunity for a clinical/counselling psychologist to join our Perinatal Mental Health Service. Our team believe that an individual's passion and transferable skills are invaluable, so we are offering a unique opportunity to those with less experience, to take on this role as a Band 7 development post .

This is an exciting time to join our team as we have just expanded our therapy team. We are a secondary care multi-disciplinary service, operating across the county working with women with severe or complex mental health needs who are pregnant or have a child under one year of age. This role will work across the north of the county covering Peterborough, Huntingdon, and Fenland.

Perinatal Mental Health is a growing specialty and provides a unique opportunity for you to develop specialist skills. If you are successful, you will draw on a range of models to provide the most appropriate therapeutic intervention. This will include individual, group, and dyadic work between parent and infant.

We would encourage applications from qualified individuals (including those about to qualify) with an interest in the specialty, regardless of your previous experience. If you are successful, you will have the opportunity to join an exceptional team, with the resources and passion to invest in you.

To discuss please contact Dr. Fiona Ram, Principal Clinical Psychologist on Fiona.ram@cpft.nhs.uk or 0800 952 0060.

Main duties of the job

If you are successful, we will expect you to contribute to the provision of a high-quality specialist perinatal psychology service to clients of the Perinatal Mental Health Service. This will involve conducting psychological assessments and providing therapy, drawing on a range of models, to women and their families. You will do so through individual, group and dyadic work between parent and infant.

You will be expected to supervise, and support work provided by other clinical members of the team, as well as providing training and consultation to the wider pathway, and working alongside professional colleagues in health visiting and midwifery teams. You will join a multi-disciplinary team, made up of psychology, psychiatry, mental health nurses, occupational therapists, nursery nurses, social workers, and support workers.

We will expect you to work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of the psychological practice within the Perinatal Mental Health Service. To support the development of the service you will be expected to utilise skills for audit, policy and service development and research and propose and implement policy changes within the area serviced by the Perinatal Mental Health Service.

In this role you will be part of the Psychological Medicine Service and therefore you will be able to access peer supervision and support through this team.

About us

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health & social care organisation dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion to improve the health & wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting & empowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services not only via inpatient and primary care setting but also with the community. These services include Children, Adult & Older Peoples mental & physical health, Forensic & Specialist mental health, Learning Disabilities, Primary Care & Liaison psychiatry, Substance misuse, Social care, Research & Development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high calibre candidates that share our vision & values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including disabled people & members of our ethnic minorities & LGBTQ+ communities.

Job description

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.

Working with mothers, babies and other family members and other team members to provide specialist psychological assessments based on appropriate use, interpretation, and integration of highly complex psychological data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological test, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

To develop psychological formulations of presenting problems or situations that integrate information from assessments within a coherent framework that draws upon psychological theory and evidence, and which incorporates interpersonal, societal, cultural, and biological factors.

To assist the Perinatal Mental Health Service team in communicating difficult, complex, and sensitive information, which is both developmentally appropriate and psychologically informed to mothers and families.

To be responsible for implementing a range of evidence based psychological interventions for users of the Perinatal Mental Health Service in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis, and treatment plan.

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 hospital and inter-agency policies and procedures.

To ensure that clients are appropriately consulted about the relevant aspects of their care and are empowered to express their views in a responsive environment.

To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory and primary care agencies as appropriate.

To attend and contribute to appropriate multi-disciplinary and psychology meetings.

To offer a systemic, reflective, and psychological perspective within the team around our understanding of families as well as team and organisational dynamics.

To significantly contribute to the evaluation, monitoring, and development of the psychological services aspect of the perinatal mental health pathway, operational policies, and procedures, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high-quality care.

Please note for this role you will be required to travel independently around the county meeting strict time deadlines. You will need to hold a full UK driving licence* and have use of a vehicle. You cannot usepublic transport for this role as this is not a reliable form of transport and will not allow you to meet service needs. Please confirm in your application that you meet the specified criteria.

*DVLA have a number ofreciprocalarrangements with overseas countries, for further information please visit the DVLA website

Person Specification

Education / Qualifications

Essential

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics, and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, or a BPS Statement of Equivalence.
• Accredited or eligible for accreditation in the above by relevant UK governing body, i.e., HCPC.

Desirable

• Evidence of post qualification development
• Experience of, or additional training in, supervising psychological practitioners.

Experience

Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation, and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care, and in-patient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, and the threat of physical abuse.
• Experience of the application of psychological therapy in different or complex contexts.
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary setting.

Desirable

• Experience of working within the perinatal mental health specialty and/or experience of working with infants and families.
• Have a lived experience of mental health challenges.
• Experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist or therapist.

Knowledge & Skills

Essential

• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and setting, and its implication for both clinical practice and professional management.
• Excellent communication skills, able to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information including contentious and highly distressing information to service users, their families' carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Able to contain and work with high levels of distress from clients and families.
• Able to tolerate ambiguity and to take decisions in situations of incomplete information.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance, including regular supervision, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within clinical health psychology.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• Interpersonally calm and able to defuse difficult situation.
• Recognise people's right to privacy and dignity, treating every person with respect.
• Willingness to be flexible in approach and attitude

Employer details

Employer name

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Address

City Care Centre

Thorpe Road

Peterborough

PE3 6DB

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

310-ASMH-5457952-A