Clinical Psychologist

NHS; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 46,000 - 53,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading NHS Trust is seeking a motivated Clinical Psychologist to support its Neurodevelopmental Team. The role involves providing specialist assessments and psychological interventions for children with learning disabilities, autism, and ADHD. Candidates will benefit from a career development pathway within an established mental health care framework.

Qualifications

• Experience in specialist psychological assessment and treatment across outpatient and community settings.
• Experience of working with children and young people with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental difficulties.
• Ability to apply complex methods requiring sustained concentration.

Responsibilities

• Provide specialist psychological assessments and interventions for children and their families/carers.
• Formulate and implement psychological treatment plans based on various psychological models.
• Communicate therapeutic plans and progress with clients and multidisciplinary teams.

Skills

Assessment

Formulation

Evaluation

Communication

Clinical governance

Education

Postgraduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology

Registration with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist

Chartered clinical psychologist

Post-doctoral training in a specialised area of psychological practice

Job description

Go back Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Clinical Psychologist

The closing date is 07 July 2025

We are currently looking to recruit an enthusiastic and motivated Clinical Psychologist to join our Neurodevelopmental Team.

The team works with young people with a diagnosed moderate to severe Learning Disability and provide assessment and treatment for Autism and ADHD. The team provides mental health assessments of young people with a neurodevelopmental disorder and also psychological therapies for co-morbid mental health disorders.

The ideal candidate will have a strong team and work ethic, sense of accountability, interest in research and service development, accompanied by an ability to work under considerable pressure at times. This post is open to professionals with the right attributes to enhance a team.

In return we will provide the necessary support to ensure your development within your role. We are keen to support and develop our staff through a clear career pathway and encourage promotional opportunities within the Trust.

If you are looking for a new challenge, enjoy variety in your work and wish to be part of a multidisciplinary team striving to make a difference for our community by supporting people with neurodevelopmental disorders and co-morbid mental health issues, then we want to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

This post allows the post holder an exciting opportunity to provide a specialist clinical psychology service to children and adolescents and their families/carers with a wide spectrum of mental health, developmental and psychological difficulties.

The post will be primarily based in the Neurodevelopmental CAMHS team but may be required to work in the Core CAMHS team, as demand requires. The Neurodevelopmental CAMHS team works with young people with ASD, ADHD and/or a Learning Disability in addition to having mental health needs.

The post holder will provide specialist clinical assessments and interventions for children and their families/carers.

About us

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high-quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting andempowering them to lead a fulfilling life.

Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services, not only via inpatient and primary care settings, but also within the community. These services include children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, research and development.

To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high-calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including disabled people and members of ourethnic minority andLGBTQ+ communities.

Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date should we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.

Job responsibilities

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities

1. To provide specialist psychological assessments of children and adolescents referred to the CAMHS team based upon the appropriate use and integration of complex data from a variety of sources, including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, their families and others involved in the clients care (including professionals from other agencies).2. To individually formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatments and/or management of a clients mental health or other complex psychological problems based on an appropriate conceptual framework adapting/utilising several psychological models and employing methods of proven efficacy.3. To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individual clients, families/carers, and via groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing on different explanatory models including developmental, cognitive, learning theory, biological, and neuropsychological, and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.4. To provide specialist child neuropsychology assessments, providing advice and consultation on this information to other NHS professionals, clients and their families, and other agencies as appropriate.5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of own clients and manage and maintain caseload in line with service requirements.6. To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.7. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of own (caseholder) clients and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.8. To participate in the CAMHS multi-disciplinary on-call system for emergency referrals, including both weekday and weekend cover.9. To work in partnership and maintain effective links with the statutory and non-statutory, and primary-care agencies as appropriate.10. To regularly deal with family breakdown, serious mental illness and child abuse.

Person Specification

Education / Qualifications

• Postgraduate doctoral level training (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) in clinical psychology as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct therapies and lifespan development psychology.
• Registration with HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Chartered clinical psychologist
• Undertaken post-doctoral training in one or more relevant additional specialised area of psychological practice.
• Training in psychometrics relevant to neurodevelopmental disorders and learning disability such as the ADOS, ADI and Vineland

Experience

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation 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 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 the application of applied psychology in different contexts including CAMHS or Children's Services.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of working with children and young people who have a learning disability, and/or neurodevelopmental difficulties and their families

Skills & Abilities

• Excellent skills of assessment, formulation, evaluation and treatment, using complex methods frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, verbally and in writing, complex technical and/or clinically sensitive information including contentious and highly distressing information to service users, their families, careers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance, including regular supervision, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology and models of psychopathology and learning relevant to clients in CAMHS.
• Good knowledge of psychological evidence-based interventions applicable to referred clients
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and mental health.

Personal

• Able to contain and work with high levels of distress from clients.
• Interpersonally calm, able to diffuse difficult, volatile situations.
• Excellent interpersonal skills enabling formation of networks with professionals from other agencies to promote effective working with clients.
• Motivated towards personal and professional development, with a strong CPD record.
• An ability to interact with clients of all ages and developmental levels, with complex problems, and who may be or become highly distressed and potentially aggressive.

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.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

£46,148 to £52,809 a yearper annum pro rata