Job summary
- Main area
- Perinatal Community Team
- Grade
- NHS AfC: Band 7
- Contract
- 6 months (Fixed term: 6 months)
- Hours
- Part time - 30 hours per week
- Job ref
- 294-AAUC-7242012-FZ
- Employer
- South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Springfield University Hospital
- Town
- London
- Salary
- £43,456 - £48,784 per annum inclusive of Inner London HCAs
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 12/06/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Psychological Therapist (Perinatal)
NHS AfC: Band 7
South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We provide a full range of local mental health services to the Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth London boroughs, as well as specialist forensic mental health services, including specialised services such as national deaf adults and CAMHS inpatients and OCD.
We are committed to providing high quality integrated health and social care for local people with mental health problems in South West London and more specialist mental health services for people throughout the UK. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ however we aim to be ‘outstanding’.
Our Values
We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values; being consistent, compassionate, collaborative, respectful and open is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is "making life better together".
When you join us, you’ll be part of something special – an innovative and rapidly growing organisation that is helping to redefine the Mental Health, education and social care landscape in the UK.
As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.
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
Working for our organisation
We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.
We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ - we aspire to be ‘outstanding’.
This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.
We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist. We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together. We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.
We offer flexible working, career development and a variety of benefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.
About our locations:
Springfield University Hospital, Tooting
Our largest, 19-ward site is in Springfield Village, created following our £150m investment into two new world class mental health facilities. A 32-acre public park, shops and cafes are coming soon. Close to shops, cafes and Tooting Bec on the Northern Line plus Earlsfield and Tooting rail stations and bus routes.
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.
Person specification
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment 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 with 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 working with people who experience severe, complex and long-term mental health problems
- Experience of delivering NICE adherent interventions especially CBT for psychological problems
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working in a specialist perinatal mental health service or as a perinatal champion in primary care
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
- Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts
- Experience of working as part of a multidisciplinary team
- Experience of working in both primary and secondary mental health care, including multi-agency working
- Experience of mental health problems and the capacity to use that experience to the benefit of patient care
Training and Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Doctoral level training (or equivalent) in clinical or counselling psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS and approved by the HCPC OR Qualification in a core graduate or post graduate mental health profession and registered with a professional body (mental health nurse, occupational therapist, clinical psychologist, counselling psychologist, social worker, Arts Therapist) and accredited practitioner of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy [CBT] by the British Association of Behavioural Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP)
- Registered with the Health & Care Professions Council (Practitioner Psychologist) OR accredited practitioner of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy [CBT] by the British Association of Behavioural Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP)
- Evidence of regular post qualification development
Desirable criteria
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology
- BABCP accredited CBT practitioner or eligibility for provisional registration with the BABCP as a CBT therapist
- Training in EMDR, IPT and/or couples or systemic interventions
- Advanced training in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy
- Additional training in VIG, VIPP and / or COSP
Knowledge and Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration OR ability to demonstrate knowledge and therapeutic skills necessary to deliver CBT treatments in line with NICE guidelines
- Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
- Knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC OR BABCP
- Skills in the assessment and evaluation of risk associated with mental ill health and related psychopathology
Desirable criteria
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. dual diagnosis, people experiencing psychosis, with personality disorder, substance misuse, learning disability, neurological dysfunction and additional disabilities)
- High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies
- Knowledge of recent policy and legislation in relation to people with severe and enduring mental health problems
- Advanced practitioner skills in at least one model of psychological therapy
- High-level knowledge in the assessment and evaluation of the psychological therapies
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 Catherine Green
- Job title
- Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
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