Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Job summary

Clinical / Counselling Psychologist. Band 8a.

Hertfordshire Community Perinatal Team (0.5WTE, 18.75 hours per week)

Maternity Leave Cover, up to 12 months.

Applications are invited for a part-time Clinical or Counselling Psychologist post in specialist perinatal services, working within the thriving and well-regarded multidisciplinary Hertfordshire Community Perinatal Team (CPT), to cover a period of maternity leave, up to twelve months.

The CPT serves the county of Hertfordshire, supporting women with complex and significant mental health needs, through pregnancy and the postnatal period as well as working closely with maternity staff and providers of primary, secondary and inpatient care.

The post-holder will have varied responsibilities; offering psychological assessments, the delivery of individual and group evidence-based psychological interventions in order to support the mother-infant relationship, offering supervision and reflective practice to a range of junior psychology colleagues and the wider MDT, service development and audit, teaching and training to MDT and healthcare colleagues as well as liaison and consultation.

Main duties of the job

• To contribute to the ongoing running and development of a highly specialised perinatal psychology service for women who are pregnant, or up to 2 years postnatal, with, or at risk of, a wide range of mental health problems including complex and severe difficulties, such as Complex Trauma, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

• To aid in the assessment, formulation and care planning of women in the perinatal period, as well as the mother-infant dyad and to provide and evaluate a range of high-quality, evidence-based perinatal-specific psychological interventions; individual and group, for service users and families. Experience across a range of therapeutic models is essential including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and other models such as Compassion Focused Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, EMDR, Systemic Therapy and Mindfulness.

• To be responsible for offering liaison and consultation to members of the multi-disciplinary team, colleagues within the inpatient mother and baby unit, the community psychology and psychotherapy service, local maternity services, as well as carers and other agencies on matters related to the psychological needs and issues relevant to the service and its users

• To offer high-quality clinical and professional supervision to junior psychology colleagues and trainee clinical/counselling psychologists

• To utilise research skills for audit, policy, and service development and research within the service

About us

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust are one of just five mental health trusts to achieve an overall rating of 'Outstanding' from theCare Quality Commission.

Our family of over 4,500 members of staff provide health and social care for people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex and Norfolk, delivering these services within the community and several inpatient settings. Everything is underpinned by choice, independence and equality, with our Trust values embedded throughout:

Welcoming. Kind. Positive. Respectful. Professional.

Job description

Job responsibilities

HERTFORDSHIRE PARTERNSHIP NHS FOUNDATION TRUST

JOB DESCRIPTION

Title: Clinical / Counselling Psychologist

Maternity Leave Cover, up to 12 months.

Grade: AfC band 8a (applications at band 7 may also be considered)

Service: Community Perinatal Team (CPT)

Working hours: 0.5WTE

Operationally Accountable to: Principal Clinical Psychologist, CPT

Professionally Accountable to: ACMHS Lead

Professionally Accountable for: Junior psychological therapists, trainee Clinical / Counselling Psychologists, Assistant Psychologists and psychology students.

Base: Prospect House, Peace Drive, Watford, WD18 3XE, and community locations across the county.

Job Summary:

• To contribute to the ongoing running and development of a highly specialised perinatal psychology service for women who are pregnant, or up to 2 years postnatal, with, or at risk of, a wide range of mental health problems including complex and severe difficulties, such as Complex Trauma, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

• To aid in the assessment, formulation and care planning of women in the perinatal period, as well as the mother-infant dyad and to provide and evaluate a range of high-quality, evidence-based perinatal-specific psychological interventions; individual and group, for service users and families. Experience across a range of therapeutic models is essential including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and other models such as Compassion Focussed Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, EMDR, Systemic Therapy and Mindfulness

• To be responsible for offering liaison and consultation to members of the multi-disciplinary team, liaising with colleagues within the inpatient mother and baby unit, the community psychology and psychotherapy service, local maternity services, as well as non-professional carers and other agencies on matters related to the psychological needs and issues relevant to the service and its users

• To offer high-quality clinical and professional supervision to junior psychology colleagues and trainee clinical/counselling psychologists

• To utilise research skills for audit, policy, and service development and research within the service

• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of team policies and procedures

• The post holder will be required to commute across sites and attend home visits, as well as offer some remote therapy options

The post holder will need to be HCPC registered. A drivers license and access to a car is essential.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Clinical Responsibility

To provide specialist perinatal psychological assessments of clients referred to the team, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complexdata from a variety of sources including psychological tests, 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 formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients complex mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings

To assess and formulate any difficulties within the mother-infant relationship, including understanding the impact of this on maternal mental health and confidence, and liaise with the MDT in order to plan how to meet these needs

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions including CBT for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses, adjusting and refining the psychological formulation according to the evolving clinical scenario

To assist in the development and delivery of group interventions for parents with mental health difficulties delivering evidence based psychological therapies (such as cognitive behaviour therapy, compassion focused therapy and dialectical behaviour therapy) according to the service users presenting difficulties

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. This evidence-based approach includes monitoring outcomes, modifying and adapting interventions drawn from a range of theoretical models

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility within HCPC guidelines for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans

To provide perinatal-specific specialist psychological liaison and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan, facilitating the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the teams to the client

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 be familiar with safeguarding policies and be able to share concerns with the team

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients, including perinatal-specific considerations of risk, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management

To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry and recording

Supervision, teaching and training:

To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from local senior professional colleagues

To provide regular and high-quality professional and clinical supervision of junior psychology colleagues, trainee and assistant clinical psychologists, as well as the supervision of psychological work and ideas implemented by other MDT colleagues

To contribute to the development of perinatal-specific knowledge and skills base within the team and wider Trust by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in perinatal psychology and national policy developments and by implementing knowledge gained

To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision, including in-house perinatal specific training within the CPT and other local teams

To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychologists, as appropriate

To undergo and maintain up-to-date Trust mandatory training requirements

Leadership and Staff Management Responsibility:

To be involved in the short-listing and interviewing of assistant, honorary or junior psychology staff when needed

Working Relationships and Communication Requirements of the Job

To promote and maintain good working relationships with psychology- and multi-disciplinary colleagues within and across teams throughout the Trust and agencies within the wider county setting

To promote and maintain good working relationships with clients, their families, carers and other external agencies

To communicate effectively and skilfully highly complex and sensitive information with clients and carers, taking into account sensitive cultural barriers to communication, 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

To communicate effectively and skillfully with other professionals within and across teams and the Trust, statutory and non statutory agencies/partners relevant to the clients care and management (including for the purposes of safeguarding and liaison)

Liaises with:

ACMHS Lead Psychologist

CPT Principal Perinatal Clinical Psychologist (supervisor)

CPT Service Manager and Team Leaders

CPT Consultant Psychiatrist

Junior Doctors

Social Workers

CPNs

OTs

Inpatient mother and baby unit team

Local maternity and health visiting services

Managers and Clinical Staff

Other Psychological Services staff within HPFT

Research, Service Evaluation and Development

To contribute to perinatal-specific service development projects within the CPT, wider Trust and other relevant agencies as required. This can involve contributing to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the service operational policies or other organizational issues, by initiating and using ones professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit

To identify any aspects of the service which need to be improved and to advise both service and professional management on appropriate changes

To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and developing services

To contribute to the development of services through proposing, initiating, undertaking and supervising service evaluation and audit. This includes the development of outcome measurement, assessment/implementation and assisting other staff in the implementation of same

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Postgraduate doctorate in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, or fully completed training as a Counselling Psychologist
• Full registration with Healthcare Professions Council

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice including CBT
• Experience in neuropsychological assessment

Experience

Essential

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. dual diagnoses, people with co-morbid conditions, physical health, social complexity, psychologically complex histories) and relevant clinical experience with these client groups
• Assessed experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of adult CV and interviews of working age with a wide range of presentations of varying severity. Typically this would involve a minimum of 2 years at specialist level, or its equivalent demonstrated through

Desirable

• Experience of working with anxiety, depression, trauma and more complex presentations such as EUPD as they present in the perinatal period
• Experience of working in IAPT, MDT and/or child and family settings

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

UK Registration

Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).

Employer details

Employer name

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust

Address

Prospect House Peace Drive Watford WD17 3XE

Peace Drive

Watford

WD17 3XE

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://www.hpft.nhs.uk/careers/ (Opens in a new tab)

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