Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

You must have experience of working in mental health services at secondary care level with complex presentations with women who may also be in crisis and who express suicidality. Experience of working in the Perinatal Mental Health field is desirable, and/or a keen interest in this specialist area alongside experience of facilitating group treatments.

The team is part of the wider Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) specialist perinatal mental health provision and there will be opportunities for networking with perinatal psychologists in this new and developing area of specialism across BLMK, the East of England Region and within CNWL.

Both regionally and locally we are committed to further training all disciplines within the team and there will be provision for training in line with a regional training programme.

For further information about this post please see attached job description

Person specification

Training And Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical/counselling psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• OR BABCP accredited CBT Therapists with significant experience of the above along with trauma therapy.
• Supervision training

Desirable criteria

• Post-qualification training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice. E.g. training in additional approved modalities such EMDR, IPT, CFT, Couples Counselling, systemic training, DIT, Mindfulness

Experience

Essential criteria

• Significant experience of working as a qualified psychologist or CBT Therapist
• Significant experience in working with Psychological Trauma.
• Specialist training or skills working with women in the perinatal period
• An interest in Perinatal Mental Health with a focus on Birth Trauma and baby loss
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in-patient and residential care settings 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.
• Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.

Desirable criteria

• Experience in working with Birth Trauma and Perinatal Loss
• Experience of representing psychological therapies within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.

Knowledge and Skills

Essential criteria

• 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, highly technical, and 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 and non-professional groups.

Desirable criteria

• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.

Other

Essential criteria

• Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours.
• Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
• Ability to drive with a full, clean UK driving licence and access to a car.