Perinatal Parent Infant Psychotherapist

Job responsibilities

1. JOB PURPOSE AND REQUIREMENTS

The post requires a flexible approach with a broad range of applied psychotherapeutic techniques, given the variety and time specific nature of treatment during pregnancy, around birth and in the postnatal first year.

The post holder needs to have had experience in the field of perinatal mental health, in particular parent-infant interventions in complex high risk cases. The postholder will require the skills to develop outreach clinics for pregnant and postnatal women with mental health problems whilst working as an autonomous practitioner. The post will require a good communicator, skilled in liaison as well as an experienced clinician who would be able to offer advice and consultation to midwives and health visitors and other relevant professionals working in the community.

To provide an efficient, effective, comprehensive and specialist psychological assessment and psychotherapy treatment plan for women and their partners during the perinatal period. Patients with moderate and severe, highly complex and persistent mental health problems are seen within this service. The work will include offering an opinion on diagnosis/formulation to patients seen within the Perinatal Service in discussion with the Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist.

To provide the particular highly specialist areas of expertise gained in post qualification specialist training to perinatal patients who present with complex and persistent mental health problems within the perinatal period.

To provide advice and consultation from a psychological perspective around parent infant relationship and the psychotherapeutic care psychological care to psychologist and non-psychologist colleagues, and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the services policies and procedures.

To be informed by evidence-based practice and participate in audit, policy, service development and research within the team

To work autonomously within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the services policies and procedures.

To undertake and oversee audit and research activity in the sector.

To offer highly specialised clinical work both assessment and treatment in the Perinatal Service to distressed pregnant and postnatal women who are suffering from perinatal mental health disorders.

3. MAIN DUTIES AND RESPONSIBLITIES

3.1 Clinical:

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by MDT andpsychotherapeutic based care plans ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and intervention. To communicate with the referral agents and others involved with the patients care on a regular basis.

To provide highly specialist psychotherapeutic, assessments including biopsychosocial assessments.

To formulate and devise parent-infant psychotherapeutic treatment and management plans for referred patients and to provide psychotherapeutic treatment, using specialist methods and techniques as appropriate to the service.

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both:

Theoretical and therapeutic models

Highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.

To offer the most appropriate treatment for patients in co-operation with other members of the multidisciplinary team.

To offer highly specialist interventions for severely disturbed mother-infant attachment in the antenatal and postnatal period.

To provide highly specialist intervention during the post-partum period to mothers and their babies and/or the parental couple and their infant.

To develop group therapeutic interventions with new mothers and their infants.

To act as a Lead Professional for the client, where appropriate, ensuring the provision of a care package appropriate for the clients needs, co-ordinating the work of others involved with care, arranging clients care reviews as required and communicating effectively with the client, his/her family and all others involved in care; and to monitor progress during the course of multi-disciplinary interventions.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management, in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures with the aim of overall risk reduction.

Education and Qualifications

Essential

• Masters level preclinical training at an Association of psychotherapists recognised training school, Educated at doctoral level or equivalent.
• Post graduate training in child and/ or adult psychotherapy / clinical psychology at an accredited training institution.
• Clinical Training: - Adult or Child Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy - Developmental Psychology
• Experience of further post-qualification working with patients in the perinatal period

Desirable

• MSc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology or other relevant Psychotherapeutic/Development Degree
• Parent-Infant Psychotherapy training

Previous Experience

Essential

• Experience in clinical work with parents and infants/young children
• Considerable experience of assessment and formulation of diagnosis within the area of perinatal mental health.
• Considerable experience of and an interest in developing clinical work with pregnant and postpartum women and their babies
• Extensive experience in working with patients with known mental health risks and complexity
• Experience of supervising clinical work within the multidisciplinary team
• Experience of raising and managing safeguarding concerns
• Experience of psychodynamically informed clinical work
• Experience of personal psychotherapy

Desirable

• Awareness of issues for professional networks and teams
• Experience of working in multidisciplinary team in a hospital setting
• Teaching/Supervising/Training: ? Evidence of managing supervisory responsibilities. ? Evidence of teaching about parent-infant theory and psychopathology
• Experience of working in adult mental health
• Awareness of basic research procedures and capacity to conduct simple surveys and audits of own work

Skills, Knowledge, Abilities

Essential

• Extensive experience of specialist psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment of pregnant and postpartum women
• Extensive experience of working with a wide variety of children and parents across the whole age range who are presenting with different problems
• Experience working with mothers and families with severe mental illness and risk to self.
• An ability to carry out audit and research in the area of perinatal mental health.
• Advanced specialist Knowledge of new-borns, early infancy and child development and of theories of infant and child mental health
• Ability to monitor and assess risk and act accordingly
• Ability to create a therapeutic milieu for parents and infants together

Desirable

• Experience of the application of psychological interventions in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of teaching, training on pre-registration course and case consultation to other psychotherapists
• Experience of working in different adult Tiers
• Experience of teaching, training on pre-registration course and case consultation to other psychotherapists
• Experience of carrying out audit and research in clinical settings.

Other

Essential

• Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.

Desirable

• Ability to teach and train others and present within public, professional and academic settings

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).