Perinatal Clinical Psychologist

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust; England; On-site; GBP 55,000 - 63,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading health service provider in the United Kingdom is seeking a Clinical Psychologist to support women with complex mental health challenges during the perinatal period. The role involves conducting in-depth psychological assessments and implementing tailored intervention plans within a multidisciplinary team. Ideal candidates should have a postgraduate qualification in clinical psychology along with relevant professional registration. This position offers a competitive salary range of £55,690 to £62,682 pro rata per annum.

Qualifications

• Postgraduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology required.
• Professional registration with the HCPC is mandatory.
• Training in therapeutic modalities like DBT or CBT is essential.

Responsibilities

• Conduct specialized psychological assessments for mothers' mental health.
• Formulate and implement treatment plans informed by evidence-based methods.
• Provide psychological advice and consultation to multi-disciplinary teams.

Skills

Psychological assessment

Communication skills

Risk management

Clinical governance

Interpersonal skills

Education

Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology

Professional registration with the HCPC

Training in a specialist therapeutic modality

Job description

Main duties of the job

The Cheshire and Mersey Specialist Perinatal Service support women who experience severe and complex mental health difficulties in the Perinatal period (throughout pregnancy and up to baby's second birthday), providing a holistic package of care for mums, babies and families via our passionate and responsive multi-disciplinary team.

Clinical Psychologists play an integrative role in each of the MDTs and are valued and well supported by colleagues. While this post will be primarily focused on delivering support to individual families (both directly and by supervising and supporting MDT colleagues) there will also be scope for delivering training and consultation to partner agencies and to be involved with other aspects of service development.

About us

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.

Flexible working requests will be considered.

Job responsibilities

To provide highly specialist psychological assessments requiring theoretical and practical knowledge of the full range of moderate to severe perinatal mental health issues, including issues relating to the mothers own mental health and to her relationship with her baby. To provide this service in a variety of locations including acute hospital settings, mental health outpatients or the service users' home.

To complete these assessments based upon the appropriate use, interpretation 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 interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.

To formulate and implement highly specialist psychological intervention plans for the formal treatment and/or management of a patients physical and psychological health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patients difficulties employing evidence‑based methods of efficacy, across the full range of health‑care settings.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, including members of staff, families and groups, within and across teams, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

To evaluate and decide on treatment options utilising physical and psychological theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors, based on past psychological and mental health history and ongoing psychological developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To analyse, interpret and make appropriate judgements regarding a range of highly complex perinatal clinical issues and presentations where there are highly complex facts and situations to consider, and where expert opinion may not concur.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based intervention plans according to a professional code of conduct.

To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other MDT professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.

To facilitate a psychologically based framework of understanding and care across all settings and agencies serving the patient group. This includes the provision of advice and consultation to external agencies supporting families in the perinatal period.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual patients and to provide advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.

Where appropriate, to act as care co‑ordinator, taking responsibility for initiating the planning and review of case conferences, advising on psychological management and reviewing psychological care for the individual with their family, carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.

To receive and communicate highly complex information which may be sensitive and/or contentious in a highly developed, skilled and sensitive manner (respectful of patient confidentiality as appropriate) concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients and their families/carers. This is to include situations that may present with hostility and high emotion or that involve overcoming major barriers to acceptance, and to monitor and review progress during the course of both uni‑ and multi‑disciplinary car.

To provide clinical assessment and therapy, involving sitting still for substantial periods of time requiring intense concentration, exposure to aggression and highly emotive or distressing situations. To work face‑to‑face without staff nearby, with any associated risk of dealing with people with mental health problems such as challenging behaviour and self‑neglect. This is in addition to the regular hazards of seeing inpatients, including exposure to infectious agents (such as MRSA, C. difficile or norovirus) and offensive odours.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Post‑graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Professional registration with the HCPC
• Training in a specialist therapeutic modality appropriate to the clinical population served and service requirements (e.g. DBT, CAT, CBT, EMDR, MBT)

Knowledge / Experience

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management, frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical & 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 groups
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to perinatal psychology and mental health
• Doctoral level knowledge (or its equivalent) of research design and methodology, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical/counselling psychology
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment, formulation and intervention with clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and inpatient 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.
• High‑level skills in the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in relation specifically to perinatal and infant mental health.
• Knowledge and understanding of the perinatal service context.
• Experience of working with women with complex mental health difficulties in the perinatal period.
• Experience of working therapeutically with the relationship between parents and their infants.
• Experience of delivering therapeutic group work.
• Experience of teaching, training & or supervision.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.

Skills

• Ability to assess and manage risk.
• Ability to recognise and challenge discrimination.
• Ability to identify and employ methods of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Excellent interpersonal skills.
• Appreciation of the interface between personal and professional lives, high level of self‑awareness and knowledge of principles of self‑care.
• Personal experience of coping with life stressors.
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi‑media materials suitable for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
• Commitment to relational working within the perinatal field.
• Ability to communicate complex psychological knowledge to maternity colleagues in concise and summarised manner.

Values

• Accountability
• Support
• Responsive to service users
• Engaging leadership style
• Transparency and honesty
• Discreet

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.

£55,690 to £62,682 a year pro rata/per annum