Assistant Psychologist Crisis Plus

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust; Greater London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading mental health service provider in Greater London is seeking an Assistant Psychologist to join the Southwark Crisis Plus service. The successful candidate will develop multi-agency crisis plans and provide essential psychological support to individuals with Complex Emotional Needs. Key responsibilities include delivering time-limited interventions, conducting assessments, and liaising with other services. A strong focus on data collection and analysis is also required. This role is onsite and offers a collaborative team environment.

Benefits

Generous pay, pensions, and leave

Flexible working options

Career development programs

Staff discounts and NHS benefits

Cycle to work scheme

Accommodation for keyworkers

Qualifications

• Experience working in mental health or related services.
• Excellent communication skills to work in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Ability to conduct comprehensive assessments.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement multi-agency crisis plans.
• Support the delivery of time-limited interventions.
• Collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data.

Skills

Psychological assessment skills

Data collection and analysis

Multi-disciplinary collaboration

Education

Relevant Psychology degree

Job description

This is an exciting opportunity to join the Southwark Crisis Plus service, as an Assistant Psychologist within Southwark Adult Mental Health Services. This project works across adult community services in the Southwark directorate, offering targeted support to individuals with Complex Emotional Needs (CEN) who have frequent psychiatric admissions and use of crisis services.

Under the supervision of a qualified psychologist, the successful applicant will lead on the co-creation of effective multi‑agency crisis plans with the CEN highest‑use service users and their care teams. The service users present with complex, sometimes challenging behaviours and acute risk in crisis. The successful applicant will develop and use a range of psychological skills including assessment and formulation, and working in a systemically‑focused approach.

The successful candidate will support the delivery of time‑limited interventions to service users, carers, and a range of mental health professionals to develop Anticipatory Management. This will require comprehensive assessment of service users’ developmental histories, patterns of presentation and use of crisis services from clinical documentation and consultation. This information will be used to develop guidance for service users, their carers, mental health and external agencies on how best future crises can be more effectively managed and to support the service user’s recovery.

A core part of the role is liaison with services in order to refine and further develop plans, and support services to action plans. The postholder will attend MDT meetings, ward rounds, etc and needs to be confident following and, at times contributing to, multi‑disciplinary clinical discussion.

There is a strong data collection, analysis and interpretation aspect to the role. Amongst other activities, this includes the collection of qualitative and quantitative outcome data from service users and the network of professionals, and developing and maintaining a number of databases linked to the identification of HIUs.

In light of the need to develop close working relationships with services and service users, this is a face to face, onsite role. You will be based across a number of sites in Southwark, including Maudsley Hospital and Southwark Community teams in Camberwell and Canada Water.

Benefits

• Generous pay, pensions and leave, we offer a comprehensive pay, pensions and leave package which is dependent on the role and length of service.
• Work life balance, flexible working and support a range of flexible options, such as: part‑time working and job sharing.
• Career development, we support your development through a number of programmes such as mentoring, coaching, positive people management, collective leadership and other talent programmes.
• Car lease, our staff benefits from competitive deals to lease cars.
• Accommodation, our staff benefits from keyworker housing available which is available on selected sites.
• NHS discounts, with discounts up to 10% from a variety of well‑known retail brands through Health Service Discounts website.
• Counselling services.
• Long service awards.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Season ticket loan.
• Staff restaurants.
• Work with SUs who present with Complex Emotional Needs, with repeat use of acute and crisis services.
• Contribute to the co‑creation of effective multi‑agency crisis plans with the highest‑use service users and their care teams.
• Use a range of psychological skills including assessment and formulation, and working in a systemically‑focused approach.
• Offering guidance to service users, their carers, mental health and external agencies on how best future crises can be more effectively managed and to support the SU's recovery.
• Attend MDT meetings, ward rounds, etc; follow and contribute to multi‑disciplinary clinical discussion.
• Developing the function of Crisis Plus, including supporting the development of new interventions that proactively engage service users.
• Collection of qualitative and quantitative outcome data from SUs and their network of professionals, and developing and maintaining a number of databases linked to the identification of HIUs.
• Support the wider work in Southwark and the trust in relation to HIUs.
• Key responsibilities are detailed in the Job description and person specification.

This advert closes on Tuesday 27 Jan 2026.