Clinical Psychologist

Job summary

Are you a psychologist looking for an exciting opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of pregnant and post-natal birthing people and their families? Look no further!

The Perinatal Mental Health Service (PMHS) and Maternal Mental Health Service (MMHS) is expanding and offering a new position for a psychologist to work in either or both teams. This will be a fixed term 12 month post to cover maternity leave.

Be Part of a Supportive Team

Join our friendly and supportive multidisciplinary teams and psychology team, where you'll find an environment to grow professionally. With plenty of training opportunities, specialist supervision, and avenues for professional development, you'll thrive in our collaborative setting.

Shape the Future

As part of large-scale national health service developments, we are dedicated to improving the quality of care and support for birthing people, their babies, and partners. By joining us, you'll have the chance to shape these new services, learn from current research and practice in the field, and attend training for specialist perinatal interventions.

Varied Interventions

We offer a wide range of psychological interventions, both directly to families and indirectly. This includes ante and/or post-natal individual or group interventions, compassion-focused therapy (CFT), video interaction guidance (VIG), eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR), cognitive behavioural therapy(CBT), systemic therapy, and psychodynamic therapy.

Main duties, tasks & skills required

Your Role

The principal purpose of this job is to improve the psychological health and well-being of women using the Perinatal and Maternal Mental Health Services. This involves various responsibilities, such as managing patient caseloads, formulating treatment plans, implementing a range of psychological interventions and offering consultation and guidance to support individuals and their significant others.

Continual Learning and Growth

You'll be supported to train in evidenced-based perinatal mental health approaches, such as VIG, EMDR, Circle of Security, interpersonal psychotherapy, CBT, etc. which will depend on your interests and the requirements of the service.

About us

As an organisation, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust offers employees a wide range of benefits including flexible working, NHS pension scheme, generous annual leave allowance and a commitment to career development.

You will be eligible for our Blue Light Card and a wide range of NHS exclusive shopping & leisure discounts.

We are proud of our skilled, diverse workforce and as an inclusive employer we welcome applications from all backgrounds.

Working in Somerset enables you to enjoy the idyllic countryside, areas of outstanding beauty and stunning coastlines whilst still only being a stone's throw away from bustling city centres like Bristol, Bath and Exeter and only two hours away from London.

There are excellent educational facilities in the area and, when compared to other regions, house prices are reasonable.

Somerset offers the countryside and the cosmopolitan -- there is truly something for everyone! 

Job description

The Services

The PMHS provide a specialist, multidisciplinary community mental health service for the assessment and treatment of pregnant and post-natal birthing people with severe mental health illness, including post-partum psychosis.

The MMHS is a smaller but expanding team and has been providing support to the community since March 2022. The aim of the service is to offer birthing people, babies, and their support network, psychologically informed assessment and interventions related to tokophobia, trauma, and/ or loss during pregnancy, birth, and/or post-natal experiences.

The posts are county-wide with a team base likely to be in Bridgwater which is well connected transport-wise by the M5. You'll be required to visit a variety of locations around the county.

Person specification

Qualifications

Essential

Honours degree in Psychology.

Post-qualification further training in a specialist therapy

Doctoral Clinical/Counselling Psychology qualification or equivalent as accredited by the BPS.

HCPC registration.

Evidence of relevant post-doctoral specialist training.

Desirable

Post-doctoral

training in one or

more additional

specialised areas of

psychological

practice

Post-qualification

specialist training in

particular

psychotherapeutic

approaches e.g.

cognitive analytic

psychotherapy, EMDR

di