Senior Practitioner

Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust; Northampton; On-site; GBP 25,000 - 45,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading healthcare provider in Northamptonshire is seeking a Senior Practitioner to work within the Northants Personality Disorder Hub. This role involves delivering DBT sessions and developing care plans for individuals with complex needs. You will join a multidisciplinary team focused on innovative interventions to reduce stigma and enhance recovery in mental health. Opportunities for supervision, training, and professional development are provided, along with a generous benefits package including a pension scheme and health service discounts.

Benefits

Generous pension scheme

Health service discounts

Generous annual leave

Qualifications

• Experience working in a mental health profession with personality disorders.
• Ability to provide training and co-develop training materials.
• Interest in evidence-based approaches to treatment.

Responsibilities

• Deliver 1:1 and group DBT sessions.
• Support colleagues in delivering SCM.
• Develop formulation-driven care plans.

Skills

Experience with complex needs

Good communication skills

Ability to reflect on own emotions

Organizational skills

Flexibility to travel

Education

Recognised qualification in a core mental health profession

Job description

Senior Practitioner

The closing date is 02 January 2026

Mental Health Nurse, Occupational Therapist, Social Worker, or Psychological Professional/Practitioner to work as a Senior Practitioner

Northants Personality Disorder Hub

Band 7 (up to 22.5 Hours)

Would you like to work for an Outstanding NHS Trust, and join an innovative and supportive service that is highly committed to decreasing stigma associated with personality difficulties, promoting optimism about recovery, and increasing access to evidence‑based interventions? An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Senior Practitioner.

The Northants Personality Disorder Hub is a countywide specialist service that works to enhance understanding of personality disorder and promote the delivery of effective interventions across community and inpatient services in Northamptonshire. The team comprises staff from a range of professional backgrounds (including nursing, occupational therapy and clinical psychology). The service provides a Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) programme at two locations across the county, and leads on the delivery of Structured Clinical Management (SCM) across general secondary mental health services. Alongside this, the service also frequently delivers training to community and inpatient teams and benefits from an established group of experts by experience who are passionate about promoting hope, improving services and co‑developing and delivering staff training.

Main duties of the job

This post will give the successful candidate the opportunity to develop their capabilities within a highly supportive and motivated multidisciplinary team. DBT training can be provided if required and other team members have been supported to attend the Health Education England (HEE) Post‑Graduate Diploma in DBT. There are a range of CPD opportunities within the service and wider network, and clinical supervision is viewed as integral to maintaining staff wellbeing and effectiveness.

You’ll have access to our generous pension scheme and health service discounts, as well as generous annual leave plus bank holidays.

As a senior practitioner you’ll be expected to:

• Deliver 1:1 and group DBT sessions
• Co‑facilitate SCM group sessions and support colleagues to deliver SCM via peer supervision, training and informal guidance
• Develop formulation‑driven care plans with service users and colleagues via consultation and direct assessment
• Provide training to staff, service users and carers and work collaboratively with experts by experience to co‑develop and deliver training.
• Contribute to a range of service development projects

About us

NHFT is an integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools. We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

NHFT promotes a culture of learning to improve the care and safety of our patients and staff, which focuses on people who enable our Trust to be 'outstanding' by supporting opportunity, innovation, development and growth.

Job responsibilities

The post holder will need to have:

• Experience of working with people with complex needs, often termed personality disorder, and be passionate about reducing exclusion and stigma for this client group
• A core mental health profession and demonstrate an ongoing interest in developing competencies in working with people with personality disorder (e.g. via training in evidence‑based approaches, areas of specialism within existing roles)
• Self‑awareness and an ability to reflect on their own emotions
• Good communication and team working skills in order to collaborate with a variety of groups and stakeholders
• Well‑organised and able to cope in potentially challenging situations and high‑pressure environments. Flexibility is required as there may be some travelling to/from different sites across the county.
• Expected that the post holder will develop in role and therefore may not meet all aspects of the job description on application.

The Personality Disorder Hub is on a mission to provide an equitable, inclusive, representative and anti‑racist service for its service users and staff. We encourage members of marginalised and/or minoritised communities to apply and communicate this difference in their application and/or interview.

For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the About You Section of the document.

Person Specification

Behaviours

• Capacity to be appropriately assertive with others in a constructive manner.
• Self‑motivated with the capacity to motivate others
• Evidence of and commitment to continuing professional development.
• Capacity and willingness to contribute to policy development and implementation within the Service.
• Willingness, understanding and valuing the importance of working collaboratively with service user representatives and organisations

Knowledge & Experience

• Recognised qualification in one of the core mental health professions e.g. psychiatric nursing, clinical psychology, social work and occupational therapy or other relevant experience and demonstrable competence to work in the mental health field in the N.H.S (e.g. by maintaining registration with the HCPC and/or your recognised professional body).
• Significant experience of working in a mental health profession (or equivalent), and in a therapeutic role with people with significant personality difficulties.
• Clinical Experience of Psychosocial assessment, formulation and treatment of clients across a range of care settings.
• Maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse, self‑harm and the threat of aggression.
• Providing consultation to other professionals across a variety of clinical settings.
• Prior experience of working within a DBT or SCM programme.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to client group and mental health.
• Learned and lived experience of the barriers facing minoritised groups in accessing mental health services

Skills & Abilities

• To demonstrate clear strategies of maintaining psychological well‑being when working with intense emotions and distressing material.
• Communicating effectively with colleagues, managers and others in both written and verbal forms, including the preparation of reports, investigations, plans and proposals.
• Communicating clearly, effectively and sensitively with patients, particularly when presenting highly complex and contentious issues in a high‑risk situation.
• Skills in engaging with other healthcare professionals in extending their psychological understanding of personality disorders and applying this understanding in their everyday practice.
• Highly developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and professionals.
• IT and keyboard skills
• Ability to undertake flexible working hours

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.

Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust