About this role
Job summary
NHFT has an established Maternal Loss Psychology Service which has expanded in line with the Long-Term Plan for Mental Health.
We are pleased to advertise for a Senior Assistant Psychologist to join Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's (NHFT) Maternal Loss Psychology Service (MLPS). The successful candidate will support in the provision of psychological assessments, formulations and interventions with service users under the care of the MLPS team, contribute to enhacing psychological understanding within team and wider services and assist with audit and service evaluation projects.
Psychological interventions are provided on both a group and 1.1 basis and include Compassion Focused Therapy, CBT, EMDR and IPT. Both remote and face-to-face interventions are available.
Main duties of the job
Following a period of induction and training within the specialist perinatal mental health service, the main clinical work undertaken by the post-holder will be to support and enhance the professional psychological care of clients within the service; providing psychological assessment and psychological interventions under the supervision of a qualified professional Psychologist.
Regular clinical supervision will be provided, as are many opportunities to learn about a wide range of perinatal and maternal presentations and services due to the integrated nature of the perinatal psychology services within NHFT. Clinical experience can be offered in a variety of areas, including complex grief assessment, individual and group work. The service supports both women and birthing people who have experience perinatal loss within the last 12 months and those who are pregnant following a previous loss
The post holder will work within Multi-disciplinary team discussions throughout the service and will work within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams' policies and procedures. They will utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the service.
About us
NHFT welcomes applications from people, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status or pregnancy or maternity status.
We want to recruit a diverse workforce, who are values driven, compassionate and have a desire to deliver high quality care every day.
We would encourage applications from groups who are currently underrepresented in the organisation. In particular, applications from disabled people (with both visible and non-visible disabilities), people from black and minority ethnic communities and lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT) people.
NHFT is committed to building a diverse workforce, ensuring staff are treated fairly at work and ensuring all staff have the learning and development they need on equality in order to undertake their job role.
We aim to use monitoring information provided by our staff and by job applicants to ensure that we do not discriminate in employment and to use this information to plan any Positive Action to address inequality.
Job description Job responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description.
It is essential that applicants have a recognised undergraduate degree in Psychology and have the Graduate Basis for Registration with the British Psychological Society. Experience of working within mental health services, perinatal or family services or services offering grief specific therapy would be beneficial. Experience of delivering group-based psychological interventions and research skills would be advantageous.
There will be opportunities for further training via local and regional delivered training programmes. We have strong links with the East Midlands Regional Perinatal Network. The post holder will also be expected to contribute to the development of a locally agreed programme that delivers training to health and social care professionals in Northamptonshire.
All our clinical psychology team have completed specialist Perinatal Clinical Psychology Training provided by NHSE.
We are looking for assistant psychologists with an interest in working with women/birthing people experiencing perinatal mental health conditionsincluding post-natal depression, post-partum psychosis and maternal OCD. This is a multi-disciplinary service with lots of opportunities for joint working and service development.
The service has also been selected as one of 10 Early Implementer sites to deliver a Maternal Mental Health Service (MMHS) which is a psychology lead provision.
Person Specification
Knowledge and Experience Essential
An upper second class honours degree or higher in psychology Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society Experience of working with people with mental health problems and/or other disabilities as an Assistant Psychologist or Senior Assistant Psychologist Experience of using psychological assessments, formulations, risk assessments and care planning Working in a healthcare setting
Desirable
Further post graduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis Experience of working in perinatal or acute mental health services. Knowledge and/or experience of working with people who have experience bereavement or maternal loss Experience of group-based psychological interventions Experience of research design, conduct and analysis
Skills and Abilities Essential
High level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive. An understanding of psychology applied to healthcare Has training and experience of audit, evaluation and research An understanding of complex needs of a person with moderate to severe mental health difficulties including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and complex grief Experience of conducting qualitative research interviews and analysis (e.g. utilising thematic analysis or other methodology)
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.
Employer details Employer name Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
Address Countywide Campbell House Northampton or Rectory Road Rushden
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
NN1 3EB
United Kingdom
Employer's website https://www.nhft.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)