Principal Clinical Psychologist Projects Lead

NHS; Shoreham-by-Sea; Hybrid; GBP 67,000 - 72,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider is seeking a Principal Clinical Psychologist Projects Lead to enhance psychological services for children in care. The role involves clinical oversight, project delivery, and collaboration with multidisciplinary teams to provide trauma-informed care and support. Ideal candidates will have a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and significant experience in service development and working with vulnerable children.

Qualifications

• Significant experience working as a qualified clinical psychologist with children.
• Clinical expertise in psychological assessment and therapy for complex problems.
• HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.

Responsibilities

• Clinical oversight, project delivery, and service development.
• Providing specialist consultation and training to social care teams.
• Direct psychological input to children in residential care.

Skills

Service development skills

Clinical supervision

Effective communication

Consultation skills

Psychological training design

Governance and audit skills

Education

Professional Doctorate in Clinical Psychology

Post-qualification training in specialized areas

Job description

Principal Clinical Psychologist Projects Lead

FTE Equivalent:£67,394 to £71,620 per annum

Contract Type:Permanent

Working Pattern:Part-time 29.6 hours per week (Monday to Friday)

Location:Based at Glebelands, Shoreham with countywide coverage Hybrid working considered (minimum 1 day/week WFH)

• Are you a trauma-informed experienced Clinical Psychologist passionate about supporting children and young people in care across West Sussex?
• Do you thrive in providing training and consultation to diverse staff groups, service development and clinical leadership?
• Do you have experience of building relationships with teams working in childrens residential care or specialist therapeutic fostering?
• Do you have experience of service development or leading a project within a service?

If so, we want to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

Following the transfer of our specialist psychological services into West Sussex County Council, we are at an exciting point of the process, integrating a range of specialist social care and psychology -led services under one roof in our Psychological Hub. Our vision is to deliver creative and impactful services whilst building upon established, collaborative relationships between the social care workforce and psychological services.

We are looking to recruit a dedicated and experienced Principal Clinical Psychologist Projects Lead to join our growing ATTACH Service(previously CAMHS Permanency). You will play a key role within our Psychological Hub, where innovative, trauma-informed, and collaborative care is at the heart of what we do.

About us

The Psychological Hub is clinically led by two consultant clinical psychologists: one leading the Community Psychological Service and the other leading the ATTACH service.

For context, the Community Service provides a range of consultation and training to the wider local authority safeguarding and edge of care teams and provides specialist psychological assessment and therapeutic interventions to children and their families where there are concerns about the child engaging in harmful sexual behaviour.

The ATTACH service delivers psychological support into our Children We Care for, Care Leavers, Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking young people and Special Guardianship teams, and includes support to our Residential and Fostering services. Our team works with carers and professionals to develop shared understanding and effective trauma-informed packages of care for children and young people including therapeutic parenting approaches for carers, DDP-informed interventions for dyads of children and carers and individual psychotherapeutic interventions for some children and young people.

Job responsibilities

This is a newly created and exciting opportunity within our specialist psychologically informed childrens social care services. Youll play a vital role in offering clinical oversight, supervision and complex assessment and intervention of children and young people within two key projects being delivered for children we care for:

• REACH a specialist fostering model delivered by a dedicated multi-disciplinary team supporting a small number of children stepping down from residential care into foster homes and helping support placement stability through therapeutic parenting support and interventions. (For more information see linked attachment about REACH.)
• The Childrens Residential Home Collaborative (CHC) an innovative partnership between the County Council and local providers of residential and semi-independent care providing an increasing number of small residential homes within West Sussex. Whilst the homes remain within the independent sector, the Local Authority supports the staff teams around the young person by providing a comprehensive offer of support to help sustain stable placements for young people, close to their community and key attachment relationships.

This initiative has born out of the national challenge to address the lack of placement sufficiency for many vulnerable and complex children we care for, who too frequently have needed to be placed in residential placements in other parts of the country, at high emotional cost to the young person and high financial cost to the public purse; and where long-term stability and wellbeing outcomes for young people, have often been poor. (For more information see linked attachment about CHC).

Key responsibilities include:

• Clinical oversight, project delivery and service development
• Providing specialist consultation, reflective practice, and bespoke training to social care and residential teams
• Offering direct psychological input to children and young people in residential care
• Supervising clinical psychologists and contributing to the wider ATTACH service vision

Youll work within amulti-disciplinary teamincluding clinical psychologists, child psychotherapists, mental health specialists, and assistant psychologists.

Person Specification

Experience

• Service development skills, such as leading on delivery of one aspect of a service or of project development within a service, based on evidence-based and evidence-informed practice.
• Skills in supporting staff and teams through clinical supervision and job planning.
• Ability to communicate effectively, presenting information that is accessible, engaging, and accurate.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional groups, and in supervising others to deliver effective consultations and a range of psychologically informed interventions.
• Skills in designing and delivering accessible and engaging psychological training to different audiences, to inform and improve the practice across services.
• Ability to provide appropriate support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• Governance and audit skills and the interest and ability to present a wide range of data and information in accessible formats.

Qualifications

• Professional Doctorate level training in Clinical Psychology, including highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological practice, lifespan developmental psychology, clinical psychometrics, and neuropsychology.
• Post-qualification training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Significant experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist with children, young people, and their families.
• Clinical expertise in delivering psychological assessment and therapy with children and young people presenting with a range of complex psychological problems and who may be mistrustful of services, alongside support to their families and other care providers.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group.
• Experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist taking full clinical responsibility for your own practice, including significant post qualification experience working with children and families with complex needs using complex methods of psychological assessment, psychological formulation, and delivering psychological therapy to children and young people.
• Evidence of continuing professional development.
• Experience of identifying and addressing barriers to inclusion and of challenging oppressive or disrespectful practices.

About You

• You are a compassionate, confident practitioner who:
• Holds HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist
• Has significant experience working with children who are looked after, adopted, or under special guardianship
• Demonstrates strong leadership skills and experience in service or project development
• Has a deep understanding of developmental trauma, attachment, and the impact of early adversity on emotional and neurodevelopmental outcomes
• Is confident providing supervision, risk management, and reflective spaces for multidisciplinary teams
• Youll also need to be an excellent communicator, with the ability to deliver psychologically informed training and contribute to the strategic service direction.
• For key skills and experience/knowledge required for this position, please refer to the job description attached.

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.