Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust

Assistant Psychologist

The closing date is 25 September 2025

Job summary

The Northants Personality Disorder Hub is a countywide specialist service that works to enhance understanding of personality disorder and promote the delivery of effective interventions across community and inpatient services in Northamptonshire. The service provides a Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) programme, leads on the delivery of Structured Clinical Management (SCM) across mental health services and delivers numerous Understanding and Managing Emotions (U&ME) groups. It also has a growing Lived Experience Advisory Panel (LEAP) that is involved in promoting hope, improving services, and co-developing and delivering staff training.

U&ME is an 18 session group-based skills development programme that aims to help individuals to learn a broader range of strategies for managing their emotions and be more effective in relationships. The group uses Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) materials and was developed to meet the needs of individuals who would have traditionally fallen through the gap between primary and secondary care services. The successful candidate will be supported in their role by colleagues within the Personality Disorder Hub, being line-managed and supervised by the specialist service, attending & contributing to professional development activities within the Hub, and co-delivering group interventions and staff training with other members of the team.

Main duties of the job

The post holders will work within a multidisciplinary team to:

Provide assessment to clarify service users' presenting difficulties and suitability for the programme.

Co-facilitate U&ME group sessions alongside a Specialist Practitioner

Collaborate in using outcome information to inform and develop good practice and review individuals' progress on completing the programme.

Help develop systems and audit projects to allow any data collected to inform Trust management, commissioners, users and other relevant stakeholders of the needs of this population.

Contribute to further service development that will aim to promote early identification of personality difficulties, help service users to access to the most appropriate interventions available across the pathway, and enable referring service colleagues to promote the use of effective coping strategies within their own short-term interventions.

Contribute to skills coaching clinics to support service users to generalise skills learnt in group.

Regular clinical supervision will be provided by a Clinical Psychologist and management supervision by the Service Manager. There are a range of development opportunities due to the service's role in training others, its strong internal CPD programme and commitment to reflective practice, and the integrated nature of Psychology Services across NHFT. It is essential that applicants have a recognised undergraduate qualification.

About us

NHFT is an integrated primary care and mental health Trust, providing physical, mental health and specialty services in both hospital settings and out in the community. Because we put the person at the centre of all we do, we focus on delivering care that is as easy to access as possible. This means many of our services can be provided at home, work or in schools.We also provide health services to various prisons and detention centres in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

NHFT promotes a culture of learning to improve the care and safety of our patients and staff, which focuses on people who enable our Trust to be 'outstanding' by supporting opportunity, innovation, development and growth.

Date posted

11 September 2025

Pay scheme

Agenda for change

Band

Band 4

Salary

£27,485 to £30,162 a year pa pro rata

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time

Reference number

270-TG348-MH

Job locations

Lotus House

Victoria Street

Northampton

NN1 3NR

Job description

Job responsibilities

The Personality Disorder Service is on a mission to provide an equitable, inclusive, representative and anti-racist service for its service users. Part of this mission involves efforts towards creating and maintaining a diverse workforce. Therefore, if you self-identify as belonging to a marginalised and/or minoritized community, we would like to encourage you to apply for the post and communicate this difference in your application and/or interview.

For further information on the advertised role, please refer to the job description located under the Supporting Documents heading. The full person specification can be accessed under the About You Section of the document.

PLEASE NOTE: We encourage early applications to this post as it will close early if the maximun number of applications are recieved.

Job description

Job responsibilities

PLEASE NOTE: We encourage early applications to this post as it will close early if the maximun number of applications are recieved.

Person Specification

Behaviours & Values

Essential

oAn interest in working with people with mental health difficulties.
oAn ability to interact well with people with mental health difficulties.

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

oAn upper second class honours degree or higher in psychology.

Desirable

oExperience of paid work in direct care provision.
oExperience using computers for databases or data-analysis, especially SPSS for Windows.
oLearned and/or lived experience of the barriers facing service users from minority groups in accessing psychological healthcare

Skills & Abilities

Essential

oHigh level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be emotive.

Person Specification

Behaviours & Values

Essential

oAn interest in working with people with mental health difficulties.
oAn ability to interact well with people with mental health difficulties.

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

oAn upper second class honours degree or higher in psychology.

Desirable

oExperience of paid work in direct care provision.
oExperience using computers for databases or data-analysis, especially SPSS for Windows.
oLearned and/or lived experience of the barriers facing service users from minority groups in accessing psychological healthcare

Skills & Abilities

Essential

oHigh level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be emotive.

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.