Specialist Clinical​/Counselling Psychologist

The Tower Hamlets Perinatal Service has an exciting opportunity for an experienced practitioner psychologist to join the team in a part time role. This role will be shared with the existing 8a psychologist in the team who works 3 days a week.

You will work with pregnant and postnatal women who have moderate to severe and complex mental health needs and help develop the service to meet the 'long-term plan' objectives and increase access to specialist evidence based mental health care. The Tower Hamlets Perinatal Service provides specialist care for women during their pregnancy, and for up to 24 months post-delivery.

You will be part of a dedicated MDT delivering high quality care to women and their babies. Experience of working within a secondary mental health and community setting is preferable, as you will be expected to take on an autonomous role, as well as being an integral part of the wider MDT.

The post holder should demonstrate knowledge/experience in the field of perinatal mental health and development of newborn babies and children.

Applicants are required to also have excellent interpersonal skills, the ability to work in partnership with other teams and agencies, excellent communication skills and a passion for working with children and families.

• The systematic provision of a high quality specialist clinical /counselling psychology service to the Perinatal Service, including specialised assessments and the development and delivery of specialised programmes of care to Perinatal service users
• To be jointly responsible for the day to day management of psychological provision to the team, identifying areas for development or challenges and work closely with the clinical leads, operational manager and psychology leadership at Borough and Trust levels, to implement and address these.
• To develop and support the psychosocial work of other staff through teaching, training supervision and consultation.
• To provide psychosocial assessment, formulation and interventions to service users.
• To promote and facilitate psychological capability within the team and to promote psychosocial interventions within the team, providing specialist advice to the team and voluntary sector agencies concerning the assessment, treatment and management of service users accessing team.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and exercise responsibility for the systematic governance of psychological practice within the team.
• To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research.
• Participate in CPD and other developmental activities
• Follow defined practices and procedures under the management and co-ordination of psychological leadership at Borough and Trust levels.

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are:
We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations.

Provide specialist psychological assessments of service users with mental health problems in the Perinatal Service. This is to be based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological data from a variety of quantitative and qualitative sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and assessments with service users and others involved in their care.

This can include the interpretation and explanation of the results of cognitive and neuropsychological tests in the context of the service users circumstances and current difficulties and the communication of these findings to those involved in the network of care and in care planning.

Be responsible for the formulation and implementation of a broad range of specialist psychological treatment and/or management of service users mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of those problems derived from a broad theoretical knowledge of psychology, and employing methods based upon evidence of proven efficacy, (NICE) across the full range of care settings.

Be responsible for implementing a range of specialist psychological interventions for individual service users, carers and groups, employed singly and in combination, adjusting and refining psychological formulations as practice and experience demand, and drawing upon different explanatory models to maintain a number of provisional hypotheses.

Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical, development and cultural processes and systems which have shaped the individual, family or group.

Be responsible for providing and receiving…