Specialist Counsellor

NHS; London; Hybrid; GBP 56,000 - 63,000; Full time

Job summary

Whittington Health NHS Trust is recruiting for a Specialist Counsellor and Clinical/Counselling Psychologist at Band 7 to provide high-intensity psychological interventions for adults with a range of mental health difficulties. The role is part-time, 22.5 hours per week, with a fixed-term 12-month contract and hybrid working arrangements.

You will deliver CBT-based therapy, supervision, and supervision to trainees, across IAPT modalities, and contribute to service development within Talking

Qualifications

• Completed a PG Diploma in CBT or in High Intensity (IAPT Pathway) and be accredited with the BABCP or a registered doctoral level qualification in clinical or counselling psychology, with PG level training in CBT with BABCP accreditation
• Qualification to provide clinical supervision to counsellors and psychotherapists (e.g. Certificate or Diploma in Supervision)

Responsibilities

• Accept referrals via agreed protocols within the service
• Assess clients for suitability for Counselling using one of the Talking Therapies approved models
• Contribute to diagnostic decisions and advise on the suitability of new referrals
• Formulate, implement and evaluate therapy programmes for clients (IAPT modalities include CfD, IPT, DIT)
• To make an assessment of risk for patient and others and take appropriate action when necessary
• Educate and involve family members in treatment as necessary
• Attend multi-disciplinary meetings relating to referrals or clients in treatment

Skills

CBT therapy

IAPT/High-Intensity experience

Clinical supervision experience

Risk assessment

Education

PG Diploma in CBT or IAPT High Intensity

BABCP accreditation or Doctoral level psychology qualification

Job description

Main area Psychotherapist Grade Band 7 Contract 12 months (Fixed Term 12 months) Hours

• Full time
• Part time

22.5 hours per week (All Talking Therapies staff work one out of hours shift per week (12:00 - 20:00)) Job ref 220-WHT-8343384-A

Employer Whittington Health NHS Trust Employer type NHS Site Crouch End Health Centre Town London Salary £55,524 - £62,652 pro rata per annum Including HCAS Salary period Yearly Closing 20/11/2026 23:59

Please note in order to progress your application, your data will be processed by our 3 rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service, who conduct recruitment activities on behalf of Whittington Health NHS Trust.

By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred from the Trust to another NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at saving you time and improving efficiencies within the NHS when your employment transfers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role.

We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants. However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey.

Whittington Health NHS Trust is committed to ensuring that its recruitment processes are carried out with integrity, transparency, and fairness for all applicants. To help maintain these standards, we ask candidates to provide accurate and truthful information throughout the recruitment process.

If incorrect or misleading information is identified, this may affect the progression of an application, any employment offer, or continued employment. As part of our due diligence, the company may verify the information provided by applicants and take appropriate act ion where necessary.

We do not charge applicants any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including applications, interviews, sponsorship arrangements, pre-employment checks, or employment offers. All vacancies are advertised through TRAC/NHS Jobs and candidates are assessed solely on their skills, qualifications, experience, and suitability for the role. If you are asked to make a payment in connection with an NHS job opportunity, please treat this as suspicious and contact the organisation directly using the details published on our official career's website.

Are you passionate about providing evidenced based psychological therapy to people struggling with a range of psychological difficulties including anxiety and depression, that is flexible and personalised to the service user? Do you want to develop personally and professionally, through regular high-quality individual supervision, and a range of team activities and ongoing CPD opportunities including specialist therapy trainings as available (e.g., IPT, DIT, EMDR, training in CBT for Long Term Conditions)?

This role is within the Haringey’s Talking Therapies service offering high quality therapies, in an environment that is supportive for staff. We subscribe to the BABCP Positive Practice guide.

We have a diverse workforce, so we particularly welcome staff members who can speak and work in languages that reflect the diverse communities in Haringey.

We are mindful that working in a fast-paced service with people experiencing psychological distress can be challenging and we proactively support all our staff. We encourage flexible working and staff are encouraged to negotiate a working pattern that allows for a good work life balance.

This is a hybrid role (office/home working). Staff are required to work part of the week in any of the locations around Haringey with the opportunity to work part of the week at home.

Main duties of the job

We are looking for a Specialist Counsellors and Clinical/Counselling Psychologists with experience of working with adults with a range of mental health difficulties to join our successful, and supportive team. You will be providing assessment and high intensity psychological interventions.
As a CBT therapist/Psychologist, you will work with adults with a range of anxiety and depression disorders using CBT.
As a counsellor, qualified in a Talking Therapies approved modality to support the provision of high quality evidenced based counselling. Counsellors should have a core training in Counselling and have specialist training in Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy/Interpersonal Therapy/Counselling for Depression or short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy to provide specialist counselling for clients presenting with depression.
You will have training and experience of providing supervision is also required as Band 7 Counsellors will undertake a range of activities alongside providing high quality one-to-one specialist counselling interventions. You may also be providing professional/clinical supervision to, act as a professional lead for trainee counsellors.
CBT therapists will also offer (or work towards offering) supervision to trainees, and advice, consultation, and training within the service, as well as having the opportunity to contribute towards shaping and developing by taking the lead in a specific area of interest.

Working for our organisation

Whittington Health serves a richly diverse population and works hard to ensure that all our services are fair and equally accessible to everyone. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we look after our staff. We aim to employ a workforce which is as representative as possible of this population, so we are open to the value of differences in age, disability, gender, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, race, sexual orientation, and religion or belief. The Trustbelieves that as a public sector organisation we have an obligation to have recruitment, training, promotion and other formal employment policies and procedures that are sensitive to these differences. We think that by doing so, we are better able to treat our patients as well as being a better place to work.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

• Accept referrals via agreed protocols within the service
• Assess clients for suitability for Counselling using one the of Talking Therapies approved Counselling models. Where the problems appear to be too complex or severe to be appropriate for the Talking Therapies service, to refer to manager/supervisor for advice on how to manage the case.
• Contribute to diagnostic decisions and advise on the suitability of new referrals, adhering to the department’s referral protocols, and refer unsuitable clients on to the relevant service or back to the referral agent as necessary.
• Formulate, implement and evaluate therapy programmes for clients. IAPT modalities include Counselling for Depression (CfD), Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression (IPT), Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy (DIT) and Couple Therapy for Depression (CTFD) and short-term psychodynamic psychotherapy.
• To make an assessment of risk for patient and others and take appropriate action when necessary.
• Educate and involve family members and others in treatment as necessary, conveying Counselling formulations with sensitivity in easily understood language.
• Adhere to an agreed activity contract relating to the number of client contacts offered and clinical sessions carried out per week in order to minimise waiting times and ensure treatment delivery remains accessible and convenient.
• Attend multi-disciplinary meetings relating to referrals or clients in treatment, where appropriate.

Person specification

Education/Qualifications

• Completed a PG Diploma in CBT or in High Intensity (IAPT Pathway) and be accredited with the BABCP or a registered doctoral level qualification in clinical or counselling psychology, with PG level training in CBT with BABCP accreditation
• Qualification to provide clinical supervision to counsellors and psychotherapists (e.g. Certificate or Diploma in Supervision)

Skills & Abilities

• Ability to evaluate and put in place the effect of training
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Has received training in, and carried out, risk assessments within scope of practice
• Able to develop good therapeutic relationships with clients
• Experience supervising other CBT clinicians.

Knowledge & Experience

• Demonstrable experience of working in mental health services
• Ability to meet agreed/specified service targets
• Ability to manage own caseload and time
• Demonstrates high standards in written communication
• Able to write clear reports and letters to referrers
• Experience of providing evidence based psychological interventions (in particular CBT)
• Experience with routine outcome monitoring
• Demonstrates an understanding (and formal training) of anxiety and depression and how it may present in Primary Care
• Demonstrates a knowledge of the issues surrounding work and the impact it can have on mental health
• Knowledge of medication used in anxiety and depression and other common mental health problems
• Demonstrates an understanding for the need to use evidence based psychological therapies and how it relates to this post
• Experience of working in Primary Care Services
• Experience in teaching and liaising with other professionals
• Experience in establishing diagnoses
• Experience in using IAPTUS
• Experience of working in a service where agreed targets in place demonstrating clinical outcomes

Personal Qualities

• Ability to work within a team and foster good working relationships
• Ability to be self-reflective, whilst working with service users, in own personal and professional development and in supervision
• Fluent in languages other than English, in particular common languages in Haringey such as Turkish and Spanish

SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN AND ADULTS

To comply with the Trust’s Safeguarding Children and Adults policies, procedures and protocols. All individual members of staff (paid or unpaid) have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults This will require you to:

• Ensure you are familiar with and comply with the London Child Protection Procedures and protocols for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young people.
• Ensure you are familiar and comply with theLondon Multi Agency Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Pan London Procedures.
• Ensure you are familiar and comply with local protocols and systems for information sharing.
• Know the appropriate contact numbers and required reporting lines.
• Participate in required training and supervision.
• Comply with required professional boundaries and codes of conduct

Whittington Health is committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.

Your application form –

• Provide only business email address for your referees – we are unable to request references from yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail accounts.
• Make sure you to include all evidence of where you meet the essential requirement on the jobs description as this forms the base of our shortlisting criteria.

Our processes –

• Closing dates are given as a guide; we are within our right to close adverts early so please ensure you submit your application as soon as possible to avoid delay.
• Some administrative recruitment activities may be undertaken using automated workflow and robotic process automation technologies. These tools assist authorised staff in processing recruitment records and employment checks but do not make decisions regarding your employment.
• If you do not hear from us up to 3 weeks after the closing date of the job unfortunatelythis means you have not been successfullyshortlisted for interview. If your require feedback on your application please contact the appointing manager detailed in the body of the advert.
• Please check your emails regularly as all correspondence from us will be via trac.systems – occasionally these emails will go into your Junk folder.
• Employment at Whittington Health is offered subject to successful completion of a 6 month probationary period for all staff with the exception of GMC Registered Doctors.

Other important information –

• You must already have the right to work in the United Kingdom or fully meet the eligibility criteria for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route. We welcome applications from candidates who require visa sponsorship; however, we can only consider these where all UKVI requirements are met. Before applying, please ensure that both you and the role satisfy the relevant UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) points‑based system criteria, as applications that do not meet these requirements cannot be progressed. For more information about the criteria, please click here
• Applications are welcome from people wishing to job share or work flexible patterns. We are committed to equal opportunities.
• In submitting an application form, you authorise WhittingtonHealth NHS Trust to confirm any previous NHS service details via the Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process should you be appointed to the post.

If you are offered a role with one of the NLPSS partner trusts, as part of pre-employment checks youridentity and right to work documentation will be verifiedremotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a "selfie" using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk

Please note that during the recruitment process your Identity Documentation (i.e. passport, driving licence, visa, etc.) will be scanned using a device which recognises UV, Infrared and Machine Readable Zone security features of the documents provided

The Trust uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.

We would welcome applications from individuals who are from underrepresented groups in the organisation

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Name Ben Cowlin Job title Lead counsellor/ senior clinician Email address [e-mail]

If you have problems applying, contact

Address WHT
Telephone If you have any queries, please contact NLPSS Recruitment Helpdesk tel. [phone]