Job summary
- Main area
- Allied Health Professionals
- Grade
- Band 4
- Contract
- 12 months ('Fixed term')
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week (9-5)
- Job ref
- 350-CC7367098
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Sefton Community Learning Disability Team
- Town
- Southport
- Salary
- £27,485 - £30,162 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 25/08/2025 23:59
- Interview date
- 08/09/2025
Employer heading
Assistant Psychologist
Band 4
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
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Job overview
A fantastic opportunity has arisen for an Assistant Psychologist to join the Sefton Learning Disability Team based at Hartley Hospital, Southport.
The successful applicant will support the work of the qualified Clinical Psychologist in improving the psychological offer to people with a learning disability who may have mental health difficulties and/or behaviours that challenge.
Specifically, the assistant will support the Clinical Psychologist with assessments, formulations and interventions as well as teaching and training sessions. There is also opportunity for audit/service data collection and analysis. You will also gain experience of working within a vibrant multi-disciplinary team and working alongside other team members including Occupational Therapists, Nurses, Medics and Speech and Language Therapists.
You will have the opportunity to develop your psychological knowledge, skills and experience while undertaking creative psychological work with adults who have a learning disability . As an assistant psychologist your work will be supervised by a qualified psychologist. There will be opportunities to develop your knowledge and skills in assessment, formulation and intervention and to attend relevant CPD events. You will also become part of a wider Psychology workforce across Mersey Care's Specialist Learning Disability Service.
Main duties of the job
The Assistant Psychologist will support and enhance the psychological care of clients who are referred to the Community LD team by providing psychological assessment, formulation and interventions under the close supervision of a qualified Clinical Psychologist. They will also work independently according to a plan agreed with the multi-disciplinary team.
We are looking for people who share our core values of continuous improvement, accountability, respect, enthusiasm and support.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
1. To undertake psychological assessments of clients - applying psychological tests, including neuropsychological, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.
2. To review a variety of data sources, including medical records, case files, and depositions to inform standardised risk assessments for qualified members of the Secure Care Division and Community Learning Disability Service (CLDS) colleagues.
3. To assist in the formulation and delivery of care plans involving the psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s problems, under the supervision of a qualified clinical psychologist.
4. To contribute to the development of outcome measures for clinical interventions, and to assist the design and implementation of service development projects within the Secure Care Division and CLDS, as required.
5. To communicate and liaise with staff and other disciplines with regard to assessing clients and reviewing their care in preparation for multidisciplinary review meetings.
6. Under the supervision of a qualified clinical psychologist or clinical nurse specialist, to prepare reports on clinical assessments with individuals, the results of psychometric assessments, case note reviews and research/audit projects.
7. To assist in clinically related administration, conduct of audits, collection of statistics, development of audit and/or research projects, training and project work.
8. To contribute to the training and support of other staff in psychological care, including contributing to the organisation of training seminars and conferences for others.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- A First or Upper Second honours degree in psychology OR a lower class with a post-graduate qualification, (e.g.: Masters degree).
- Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society (GBR)
- ECDL or demonstrable proficiency with Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Publisher and SPSS.
Desirable criteria
- Degree including study of psychopathology/clinical/forensic issues.
- Further training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice, positive behaviour support, autism, personality disorder and/or research design and analysis.
Knowledge and Experience
Essential criteria
- Knowledge of psychological approaches to working with people with learning disability who have mental health needs or behaviours that challenge (E.g. positive behaviour support, trauma-informed care, person-centred care etc)
- Good written and spoken English.
- Good inter-personal skills
- Good organisational skills
- Ability to carry out instructions, use own initiative but recognise own limits and can utilise and tolerate supervision effectively
Desirable criteria
- Has experience of face-to face work within psychology, mental health and/or with clients with behaviours that challenge
- Has experience of working in a hospital or learning disability setting, such as supported accommodation or residential home
- Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary team/ experience of working alongside staff from other disciplines.
- Experience of research methods, audit or other service evaluation techniques
- Has worked with clinical psychologists and/or mental health professionals and has an awareness of professional standards/issues.
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulness
- Enthusiasm
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership style
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discrete
- Change oriented
Skills
Essential criteria
- High level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive.
- An understanding of the needs and difficulties of people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and/or behaviours that challenge
- An understanding of psychology applied to health care.
- Able to use library effectively, conduct literature searches etc
- Ability to accept and use supervision appropriately and effectively
- Recognises the limits of own competence and need for supervision
- Ability and willingness to travel for work
Desirable criteria
- Experience using computers for databases or data-analysis, especially SPSS for Windows
- High standard of report writing.
- An ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to a learning disability context.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
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 Bridie Lawler-Whatson
- Job title
- Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 01704 383030
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