Lead for Perinatal Parent – Infant Interventions

Job description

Job responsibilities

Clinical

1. To provide highly specialist parent-infant psychotherapeutic assessments of service users of the Perinatal mental health service and their infants based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the clients care.
2. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychotherapeutic treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems and any associated difficulties arising in the parent-infant relationship, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
3. To be responsible for implementing a range of evidence based psychotherapeutic interventions for parents and infants, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychotherapeutic formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
4. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
5. To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychotherapeutic care plans.
6. To provide specialist psychotherapeutic advice, guidance, consultation and training to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychotherapy-based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all service users and their infants under the care of the team.
8. To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychotherapeutic aspects of risk assessment and risk management, particularly relational risk between parents and infants.
9. To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care, integrating the contribution of other professionals on the basis of client need.
10. To work jointly with psychologists & psychotherapists based in community teams, to plan and hand over the psychotherapy assessment and treatment of patients that may continue after discharge from the Perinatal Team.

1. To provide clinical placements for trainee parent infant psychotherapists, ensuring that trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to good mental health care and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies.
2. To provide post-qualification training (CPD) and clinical and professional supervision to qualified psychological therapists
3. To provide advice, consultation and training and clinical supervision to other members of the service for their provision of psychologically based interventions to help improve relational functioning between parents and infants.
4. To provide pre- and post-qualification teaching of psychological therapists as appropriate.
5. To maintain and develop skills in the area of professional pre- and post-graduate training and clinical supervision.
6. To provide advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate.
7. To receive regular clinical and professional supervision from a senior psychotherapist and, where appropriate, other senior professional colleagues.

1. To hold responsibility, in conjunction with the P&P lead for perinatal services, for the systematic governance of psychological practice of the team in relation to parent-infant interventions.
2. To participate as a senior clinician in the development of a high quality, responsive and accessible service including advising both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
3. To exercise delegated responsibility for managing the psychological resources available to the service whether in the form of additional qualified and unqualified graduate psychological therapies staff, or in the form of psychological materials employed in the assessment and treatment of patients and their babies.
4. To support the ongoing development of psychological care pathways within the service, particularly those relating to parent-infant needs.
5. To participate as appropriate in staff recruitment, both in the short-listing process and as a member of interview panels for assistant, trainees and qualified psychological therapists

1. To take the psychological therapies lead, as a senior clinician, in the evaluation, monitoring and development of the services adherence to Trust policies and procedures, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit and ensuring incorporation of psychological frameworks for understanding and provision of high-quality care.
2. To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual and group work and work with other team members.
3. To undertake appropriate research and provide research advice to other staff undertaking research.
4. To initiate project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within and across the service to help develop and improve services to clients and their families.

1. To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes, in consultation with the postholders professional and team managers.
2. To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in parent-infant interventions across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular specialist professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the field of Parent-Infant Psychotherapy and related disciplines.
3. To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping including electronic data entry and recording, report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance in accordance with professional codes of the post holders professional registration body and Trust policies and procedures.
4. To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the rehabilitation client group and mental health in general.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• oClinical Training in Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy or Child Psychotherapy AND oProfessional registration with -UKCP (under the Council for Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis section) or -BPC (Jungian Analyst; Psychoanalyst; Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist) or -ACP (Child Psychotherapist) AND oSuccessful completion of Parent- Infant Psychotherapy Training (including completion of an infant observation and personal psychoanalysis)
• oFormal training in supervision of trainee applied psychological therapists and related personnel
• oPost-graduate doctoral level training in clinical/counselling psychology, including specific models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by the BPS
• oRegistration with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC)
• oEvidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS including that which focuses on assessing, formulating and intervening effectively in the parent-infant relationship.

Desirable

• oFurther training / qualifications in Perinatal Mental Health
• oPost qualification training in applied research methods, staff training & other methods of applied psychotherapeutic work
• oPost-qualification training in other relevant models of assessment and intervention which are evidenced to support the parent -infant relationship e.g. Care-Index, PIIOS, COSP, VIG, VIPP, Watch Wait Wonder, Brazelton Newborn Behavioural Observations

Experience

Essential

• oAssessed experience of working as a qualified clinical or counselling psychologist for a significant period with experience of working at a highly specialist level with clients with mental health needs related to the perinatal period
• oExperience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings
• oExperience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity
• oExperience of using evidence based psychological therapies to treat clients with mental health problems and associated difficulties in the parent-infant relationship
• oExperience of providing supervision to a range of psychological professionals of differing levels of experience

Desirable

• oExperience of teaching and training.
• oExperience of the application of parent-infant psychotherapy in different cultural contexts
• oExperience of working through interpreters
• oExperience of working as part of a multidisciplinary team and supervising clinical work within the MDT
• oExperience of working within a multicultural framework
• oExperience of raising and managing safeguarding concerns

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.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

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

South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

Address

Springfield University Hospital

London

SW17 7DJ

Employer's website

https://www.swlstg.nhs.uk/ (Opens in a new tab)