Job summary
- Main area
- Clinical / Counselling Psychology
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 8a
- Contract
- 7 months (Cover role for maternity leave. The funding via Islington Council for this post is fixed-term until end March 2026, but expected to be renewed, so there is the likelihood of the cover role being available until May 2026.)
- Hours
- 22.5 hours per week (Open to part-time applications. Wednesday afternoons is a core session for PICT Team activities.)
- Job ref
- 455-NLFT-0221
- Employer
- North London NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Islington Council buildings, NLFT NHS buildings
- Town
- Islington, London
- Salary
- £61,927 - £68,676 per annum Inclu HCAS
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 21/07/2025 23:59
Employer heading
PICT Psychologist
NHS AfC: Band 8a
Thank you for your interest in the North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT). This is an exciting time to join us and be part of our journey to improve mental health care across North London and deliver excellent services to our local people. We will achieve this through the North London Way, as we:
- Collaborate at every level by living our values to create the right conditions for us all to work together.
- Develop our new Trust culture, to help make our new Trust a great place to work and to receive great care.
- Empower our teams to lead the planned improvements in our services, by skilling them and giving them the tools to make the changes.
- Focus on delivering excellence at every level to improve our performance and ensure consistently high-quality care across all our services.
- Ensure that research, quality improvement, and technology lead the way and are embedded in our services.
- Take a trauma informed approach to everything we do
We proactively welcome diversity in our workforce and pride ourselves on being an inclusive employer. We aim to recruit from our local communities and provide opportunities to all including apprenticeships, veterans, care leavers and more.
The North London Way to deliver: Better Mental Health, Better Lives, Better Communities.
Our trust website is: https://www.northlondonmentalhealth.nhs.uk/
Job overview
Are you interested in an exciting, empowering role that makes a difference to the lives of people experiencing multiple exclusion and homelessness and that provides psychologically-informed support to client-facing staff in services that work with this client group?
We are looking for a skilled clinical or counselling psychologist to cover a period of maternity leave based within the PICT (Psychologically Informed Consultation & Training) Team, in a role commissioned by Islington Council and funded by the GLA.
The role works alongside staff within existing Islington council Rough Sleeping services supporting people who are rough sleeping or with histories of rough sleeping and currently living in supported housing.
The PICT role offers mental health expertise to client-facing services in local authorities with the aim of promoting greater knowledge, understanding, curiosity and skill, through providing a model of consultation, training and joint working that supports the wider system to work more effectively with people presenting with complex mental health presentations (not necessarily diagnosed), including those experiencing multiple disadvantage.
A smaller proportion of time will be spent in some direct psychological / therapeutic engagement work with service users.
Time will additionally be spent supporting the homelessness pathway within the Trust and liaising with council and trust services.
Main duties of the job
This role will involve co-located and collaborative working with existing services that offer support to people who are rough sleeping or with histories of rough sleeping and currently living in supported housing.
The post holder will offer PICT interventions to staff and residents in a variety of settings including a Complex Needs Hostel, the Independent Housing Intensive Support team and those who are rough sleeping and known to Navigator and/or the Community Safety teams.
Alongside consultation, liaison and training the post holder will offer some direct interventions to residents where possible.
The post holder will be required to work flexibly, independently, and responsively within a changing environment. Applicants need to be comfortable with outreach and multi-agency joint working and need to have experience working directly with services users who may be described as having enduring complex emotional needs, with diagnoses such as personality disorder and psychosis and those who use substances.
Applicants need to be confident in providing case consultation to staff from a variety of professional backgrounds and have experience of multi-disciplinary team working. The above are core components of the post.
Working for our organisation
North London NHS Foundation Trust (NLFT) is committed to improving mental health care to deliver excellent services to our local people.
Our 5 Year Strategy:
1. Provide consistently high-quality care closer to home.
2. With our partners in North London and each borough we will ensure equity of outcome for all
3. We will offer great places to work, providing staff with supportive environment to deliver outstanding care.
4. We will be more effective as an organisation by pioneering research, quality improvement and technology.
In order to meet the needs of the Trust you may be required from time to time to work at different locations to your normal place of work, at any location under Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey or Islington. The Trust reserves the right to require staff to work at such other places or locations as it considers reasonable and necessary on a temporary or permanent basis.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see attached Job Description and Person Specification, which provide detailed descriptions of the roles and requirements.
Person specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 2000) or Counselling psychology as accredited by the Health Professions Council, the British Psychological Society, or British Psychological Society Statement of Equivalence.
- Current registration with the Health Care Professionals Council as a practitioner psychologist.
Desirable criteria
- Completion of further post-qualification specialist training in an area relevant to the post
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of post qualification highly specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature in relevant speciality and/or client group e.g. Addictions/homelessness/complex trauma/psychosis/personality disorder).
- Experience of working with a wide variety of service users, across the whole life course and presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity.
- Experience of teaching, training, and offering effective consultation and supervision services
- Experience of working with, and addressing issues of, diversity.
- Experience of the application of consultation and therapy in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of specialist work with substance misuse, psychosis and/or trauma and complex trauma.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working in partnership with third sector agencies to deliver services.
- Experience of working with homeless people
Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of a range of methods of psychological assessment (including psychometric tests), intervention and management for the full range of problems of severity and complexity presented in adult mental health
- Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, with service users, their families, carers, and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
Abilities
Essential criteria
- Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting.
- Ability to work flexibly and across organisational boundaries, whilst maintaining your professional identity as an NHS professional.
- Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
- Interest and ability to contribute to service development
- Ability to work creatively and flexibly
- Ability to maintain a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems
- Ability to reflect on your own practice to inform your work or interventions.
- Post qualification training in at least one or more models of relevant psychological therapy (MBT, CBT/DBT, psychodynamic)
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and data analysis as practised within the clinical fields of psychology.
- Well-developed knowledge of the clinical area where the post has designated special responsibilities
- Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the Health and Care Professions Council, and British Psychological Society
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of ‘psychologically Informed Environments’ and Trauma informed care
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Dr Gemma Mitchell
- Job title
- PICT Team Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 07813398517
- Additional information
Please alternatively contact Dr Farha Choudhary, Consultant Clinical Psychologist: [email protected]
If you have problems applying, contact
- Address
-
Candi & Tavi
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