Job summary
Perinatal Mental Health Community Service0.8 wte (location; West or North Kent)
We are excited to be able to offer a fantastic position for qualified Band 7 Clinical/Counselling Psychologist (including current trainees who are hoping to qualify this year) or Parent Infant Psychotherapist. There will be very close working with a Senior Clinical Psychologist and/or Parent Infant Psychotherapist and there will be lots of opportunity for additional support.
This is an exciting and rewarding opportunity for a Psychological Practitioner to join the newly accredited and expanding specialist perinatal service. The post holder will provide qualified specialist psychological services to parents, infants and families during the perinatal period. Delivering specialist psychological assessment, therapy, advice, supervision and consultation as required. The role will include active involvement in the multidisciplinary development of the specialist community perinatal mental health service. The post holder will work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the services policies and procedures. Training in EMDR and parent-infant approaches will be provided to the successful applicant.
If you are interested in this position or have any questions, we would welcome and encourage you to contact us for an informal discussion and/or to meet the team.
Main duties of the job
The Perinatal Mental Health Community Service (PMHCS; formerly known as MIMHS) is a specialist service that covers the whole of Kent and Medway. PMHCS specialises in the assessment, diagnosis and short-term treatment of women aged 18 and above who are affected by a moderate to severe mental health illness in the preconception, antenatal and postnatal period.
As perinatal mental health is an expanding area of development, there is fantastic potential for career development and training opportunities. There will be the opportunity to develop specialist competencies in evidence-based models (e.g. tf-CBT, EMDR,) for individual therapy as well as specialist parent-infant interventions including Video Interactive Guidance (VIG) and Video Feedback Intervention to promote positive parenting (VIPP) as well as developing group interventions.
In line with the long-term plan, the service is developing its interventions with couples, co-parents and working with families up to 24 months. It is an exciting time to join our teams as each perinatal service has recently been awarded national funding for the expansion of their services.
- Psychological assessment
- Psychological formulations
- Psychological treatment groups
- Individual therapeutic interventions
- Liaison with other agencies responsible for and working with, mothers, infants and families during the perinatal period.
- Family interventions
- Reflective Practice/Case discussion with staff
About us
Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life.
We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people across the county.
The Trust (rated Good overall by the CQC and Outstanding for care) has 3,283 staff working in 66 buildings across 33 locations, covering an area of 1,450 square miles.
You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones.
The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The main clinical work undertaken is to provide specialist psychological assessment and intervention for mothers, birthing people and their babies and families in the community. With support from senior professionals within the team, the successful candidate will have the opportunity to further develop and shape psychological services for adults with perinatal mental health. There are excellent opportunities to develop your own interests, opportunities for involvement in high-quality research, service audit and evaluation with our research support team, as well as, group work, training, supervision, and developing service-user engagement.
The post holder will be based within one of our three multi-disciplinary teams located in the East Kent, West Kent, North Kent and Medway areas who all provide high-quality direct (assessment and therapeutic) and indirect (consultative, advisory and evaluative) specialist perinatal interventions. There may be very occasional need to support the other localities.
The successful applicant will also be part of the expanding friendly and supportive psychological therapies team which includes senior clinical psychologists, parent-infant psychotherapists, and assistant psychologists.
We would invite enthusiastic and self-motivated candidates to apply. We encourage and support supervision and have excellent continuing professional development and leadership development opportunities. We have a close relationship with the local clinical psychology training course and offer specialist and research placements.
The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010)
Please see job description for full details.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The main clinical work undertaken is to provide specialist psychological assessment and intervention for mothers, birthing people and their babies and families in the community. With support from senior professionals within the team, the successful candidate will have the opportunity to further develop and shape psychological services for adults with perinatal mental health. There are excellent opportunities to develop your own interests, opportunities for involvement in high-quality research, service audit and evaluation with our research support team, as well as, group work, training, supervision, and developing service-user engagement.
The post holder will be based within one of our three multi-disciplinary teams located in the East Kent, West Kent, North Kent and Medway areas who all provide high-quality direct (assessment and therapeutic) and indirect (consultative, advisory and evaluative) specialist perinatal interventions. There may be very occasional need to support the other localities.
The successful applicant will also be part of the expanding friendly and supportive psychological therapies team which includes senior clinical psychologists, parent-infant psychotherapists, and assistant psychologists.
We would invite enthusiastic and self-motivated candidates to apply. We encourage and support supervision and have excellent continuing professional development and leadership development opportunities. We have a close relationship with the local clinical psychology training course and offer specialist and research placements.
The post holder must hold a full, valid, UK driving licence and have access to a car/vehicle to use for business purposes (unless you have a disability as defined by the Equality Act 2010)
Please see job description for full details.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral level qualification or equivalent Parent Infant Psychotherapy Qualification
- Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council ( HCPC) as a psychologist
Desirable
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
- EMDR/VIG
Experience
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical 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.
Desirable
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of working with women during the perinatal period.
- Experience of working with family or carers.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Doctoral level qualification or equivalent Parent Infant Psychotherapy Qualification
- Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council ( HCPC) as a psychologist
Desirable
- Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
- EMDR/VIG
Experience
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical 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.
Desirable
- Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience of working with women during the perinatal period.
- Experience of working with family or carers.
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.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Additional information
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see
NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details
Employer name
Kent & Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust
Address
Possible sites: Elizabeth Raybould Centre, Dartford/Eastern and Coastal Area Offices, Canterbury/Oakapple Lane, Maidstone
Maidstone
ME16 9NW
Employer's website
https://www.kmpt.nhs.uk (Opens in a new tab)
