Principal Psychologist

NHS; Preston; On-site; GBP 64,000 - 75,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading healthcare organization in England seeks a Clinical Psychologist to provide high-quality psychological services for children in local authority care. The role entails supervising Emotional Health Practitioners, delivering clinical work, and ensuring adherence to governance and oversight standards. Candidates should possess a Doctoral qualification in psychology and substantial experience with children and families. Competitive salary ranges from £64,455 to £74,896 per annum, pro rata. Flexibility in working patterns is supported.

Benefits

Flexible working patterns

Supportive work environment

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology or equivalent.
• Post-doctoral training in attachment focused psychological practice.
• Accredited by HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist.

Responsibilities

• Deliver high quality psychology services across the SCAYT+ service.
• Supervise Emotional Health Practitioners.
• Monitor service performance and contribute to clinical oversight.

Skills

Child psychology expertise

Clinical supervision experience

Knowledge of attachment theory

Multidisciplinary teamwork

Education

Doctoral level training in clinical psychology

Post-doctoral training in attachment focused areas

Accreditation by HCPC as Practitioner Psychologist

Job description

Overview

A rare opportunity has arisen for a clinical, counselling or forensic psychologist experienced in working with children in local authority care and their support networks, developmental trauma, and attachment difficulties to work in our SCAYT+ service for 6 months. SCAYT+ stands for Supporting Carers And Young people Together. The service sits within Lancashire County Council's (LCC) Fostering Department, with psychological input provided via service level agreement with LSCFT.

There are two clinical psychologist posts in the service, both of whom are LSCFT employees (0.8WTE 8C Consultant Clinical Psychologist and 0.6WTE 8B Principal Psychologist) - we are looking to temporarily cover the 8B position. The psychologists within SCAYT+ are responsible for the clinical leadership, development, and supervision of the team and service.

SCAYT+ seeks to support children who are in the care of the Local Authority, adopted, or living with special guardians in Lancashire. By working systemically with the important adults around the child, we seek to co-develop attachment and trauma-informed formulations of the child's strengths and needs, which then inform therapeutic approaches to the care and support they receive.

Main duties of the job

This senior post holder will be responsible for ensuring delivery of high quality psychology services across the SCAYT+ service throughout Lancashire. This will include the supervision of Emotional Health Practitioners, the completion of clinical work, the monitoring of service performance and contribution to clinical oversight and governance, and the development and direct implementation of agreed system and service changes.

SCAYT+ is a well established service which makes a very real positive difference to the children and adults it works with. The team is friendly and well-supported with established model-specific supervision groups and a clear management and clinical/ professional leadership structure, with input from both LCC and LSCFT. You will not only be a valued member of SCAYT+ but also of the collective psychological professionals working within the Children and Young People\'s Care Group in LSCFT. We look forward to hearing from you!

About us

LSCFT values diversity and inclusion, recognising that talent from varied backgrounds creates a flexible, creative, and effective workforce. We actively challenge discrimination and welcome applications from all, regardless of age, disability (including those with experience of accessing or caring for someone who has accessed mental health or learning disability services), ethnicity, gender, religion, belief, or sexual orientation.

Our aim is to reflect the communities we serve, so we particularly encourage applications from under-represented groups. If you\'d like to discuss your application, please ask.

We also welcome individuals with lived experience relevant to the role or service area, as your insight brings authenticity to our services.

LSCFT support flexible working, we believe that a positive work/life balance benefits NHS employees through improved health and wellbeing. We would consider working patterns such as term time, part time, compressed hours and flexi-time.

Job responsibilities

Responsibilities include delivering high quality psychology services across the SCAYT+ service, supervising Emotional Health Practitioners, performing clinical work, monitoring service performance, contributing to clinical oversight and governance, and developing and implementing system and service changes.

Person Specification

Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996), counselling psychology or forensic psychology, including models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS
• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional attachment focused area of psychological practice, for example, DDP or Theraplay
• Accredited by the HCPC as a Practitioner Psychologist

Experience

• Substantial post-qualification experience working as a qualified psychologist with children, young people and their parents/carers
• Substantial experience of contributing a psychological perspective within the context of multidisciplinary and multiagency care for children, young people and their parents/carer
• Experience of working with a wide variety of child and family presentations that reflect the full range of clinical need, including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing difficulties
• Experience of clinical supervision of unqualified and/or qualified clinical, counselling or forensic psychologists and other psychological therapists

Knowledge

• Doctoral level knowledge of clinical, counselling or forensic psychology, including highly developed knowledge of lifespan developmental psychology
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology
• Well developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific populations (e.g. developmental trauma, complex trauma, attachment difficulties etc)

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.

Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust

£64,455 to £74,896 per annum, pro rata