Clinical /Counselling Psychologist /Senior CBT Therapist

Job Summary: To support the establishment and development of the Hertfordshire Maternal Mental Health Service (MMHS), creating a responsive and cohesive team delivering exceptional clinical care to mothers and families who have suffered a perinatal loss, trauma or are experiencing tokophobia, in line with national policy To ensure that service development is driven by trauma-informed perspectives To provide supervision and management to psychology staff within the MMHS and training to the wider MDT To ensure the provision of specialist high-quality and evidence-based psychological assessment and therapies to service users and their families, referred to the MMHS. Experience across a range of therapeutic models is essential including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and other models such as Compassion Focussed Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, EMDR, Systemic Therapy and Mindfulness. To promote, monitor and prioritise equality of access and services offered to the local population To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research To propose and implement relevant policy within the area served by the MMHS All staff should comply with the Trusts Anti-Discriminatory Statement, Employee Charter, Trust Policies and Procedures, Code of Conduct and Equality and Diversity The post-holder will be required to work from community sites across the county, and access to a car will be essential for this role # To be responsible for offering liaison and consultation to members of the multi-disciplinary team, liaising with colleagues within the community perinatal team, inpatient mother and baby unit, the community psychology and psychotherapy service, local maternity services, as well as non-professional carers and other agencies on matters related to the psychological needs and issues relevant to the service and its users To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of team policies and procedures The post holder will be required to commute across sites and attend home visits, as well as offer some remote therapy options. The post holder will need to be HCPC registered. A drivers license and access to a car is essential. All staff should comply with the Trusts Anti-Discriminatory Statement, Employee Charter, Trust Policies and Procedures, Code of Conduct and Equality and Diversity. Duties and Responsibilities: Clinical Responsibility To provide specialist perinatal psychological assessments of clients referred to the team, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients complex mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings. To assess and formulate any difficulties, particularly including how the impact of trauma and loss on maternal mental health and confidence, and liaise with the MDT in order to plan how to meet these needs To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions including CBT for individuals, carers, families and groups, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses, adjusting and refining the psychological formulation according to the evolving clinical scenario. To assist in the development and delivery of group interventions for parents with mental health difficulties delivering evidence based psychological therapies (such as cognitive behaviour therapy or compassion focused therapy, trauma-focused therapy) according to the service users presenting difficulties. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group. This evidence-based approach includes monitoring outcomes, modifying and adapting interventions drawn from a range of theoretical models To exercise autonomous professional responsibility within HCPC guidelines for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans To provide perinatal-specific specialist psychological liaison and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan, facilitating the effective and appropriate provision of psychological care by all members of the teams to the client To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group To be familiar with safeguarding policies and be able to share concerns with the team To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients, including perinatal-specific considerations of risk, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping and report writing, according to professional and Trust guidelines, including electronic data entry and recording Supervision, teaching and training: To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from local senior professional colleagues. To provide regular and high-quality professional and clinical supervision of junior psychology colleagues, trainee and assistant clinical psychologists, as well as the supervision of psychological work and ideas implemented by other MDT colleagues To contribute to the development of perinatal-specific knowledge and skills base within the team and wider Trust by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in perinatal psychology and national policy developments and by implementing knowledge gained To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision, including in-house perinatal specific training within the MMHS and other local teams To contribute to the pre- and post-qualification teaching of clinical psychologists, as appropriate To provide perinatal-specific training to staff working with the perinatal population across a range of agencies and settings, including maternity settings To undergo and maintain up-to-date Trust mandatory training requirements Leadership and Staff Management Responsibility: To be involved in the short-listing and interviewing of assistant, honorary or junior psychology staff when needed Working Relationships and Communication Requirements of the Job To promote and maintain good working relationships with psychology- and multi-disciplinary colleagues within and across teams throughout the Trust and agencies within the wider county setting To promote and maintain good working relationships with clients, their families, carers and other external agencies To communicate effectively and skilfully highly complex and sensitive information with clients and carers, taking into account sensitive cultural barriers to communication, concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care To communicate effectively and skillfully with other professionals within and across teams and the Trust, statutory and non statutory agencies/partners relevant to the clients care and management (including for the purposes of safeguarding and liaison) Liaises with: ACMHS Lead Psychologist MMHS Clinical Lead Perinatal Psychologist (supervisor) CPT Principal Perinatal Clinical Psychologist MMHS Service Manager and Team Leaders MMHS Consultant Psychiatrist MMHS MDT Local maternity and health visiting services Inpatient mother and baby unit team Managers and Clinical Staff Other Psychological Services staff within HPFT Research, Service Evaluation and Development To contribute to perinatal-specific service development projects within the MMHS, wider Trust and other relevant agencies as required. This can involve contributing to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the service operational policies or other organizational issues, by initiating and using ones professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit. To identify any aspects of the service which need to be improved and to advise both service and professional management on appropriate changes. To contribute to the consultation and engagement of service users in planning and developing services To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and to provide advice and supervision to other staff towards the same To contribute to the development of services through proposing, initiating, undertaking and supervising service evaluation and audit. This includes the development of outcome measurement, assessment/implementation and assisting other staff in the implementation of same To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles

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