Job summary
'Relationships Are Everything! - Warrington BABS and Childrens Services Integration
An exciting opportunity has arisen within Building Attachment and Bonds Service in Warrington for an innovative Psychologist 0.5 wte 12-month Fixed Term contract to work within a truly collaborative and integrated 'Health and Care' model supporting Warrington's most vulnerable complex parents/families and infants 0-2 years. This post will sit both in Warrington BABS Parent Infant Mental Health Service and Warrington Childrens Services new Child Protection Multi-Agency Team, which is an integral part of Warrington's Pathfinder 'Family's First for Children.
Warrington BABS is a specialist, easy to engage, therapeutic Parent-Infant Mental Health Service which supports vulnerable parents who have experienced ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) to build secure bonds and attachment relationships with their babies via the offer of its specialist, community-based preventative service.
Main duties of the job
Warrington BABS's values, ethos, mission and model is aligned to work of the Pathfinder and its reforms - driving forward prevention, early intervention and offering the best possible care/support and outcomes for the most vulnerable families to enable families to stay together and prevent children from going into care. This post will be key in ensuring that as an integrated partnership we safeguard parent infant relationships, mental health as well as risk.
Since Warrington BABS launched in 2024, the service has supported many of the most vulnerable/at risk parents and infants living in Warrington, helping them to build secure bonds, attachment relationships and good parent-infant mental health, via the delivery its strength-based, collaborative, psycho-social MDT programme of care and support. BABS groundbreaking outcomes and cost savings have been evidenced over the past 10 years across other boroughs via BABS service evaluations, videos, media work/publications, national awards and BABS research published by Liverpool and Edge Hill Universities. This post will strengthen both BABs and Warrington Childrens Services offer to Warrington families.
About us
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Supporting Parents and Babies in Warrington to have Stable Homes Built on Love
McCallisters Independent Review of Children Social Care (Reset, 2022) put a spotlight on the need for radical reform/reset in Childrens Services to better support our most vulnerable families, nationally. The Implementation Strategy and Consultation paper Stable Homes Built on Love (2023) was later published, shared with government and has resulted in a £200 million investment to reset Childrens Services across the UK. The golden thread and ethos throughout this new strategy mirrors the BABS model and service. The best way of promoting childrens welfare is by supporting childrens families and the loving relationships around them and recognises that To achieve this reset, Childrens Services must put love and stable relationships at the heart of everything it does.
Warrington Childrens Services has been selected as 1 of the UKs 7 national pathfinders to take ambitious action across six pillars to transform childrens Social Care; laying down the foundations for whole system reform and setting national direction for change. BABS being recognised nationally (PIF, 2024) and across other Merseyside as a Best practice parent infant mental health service and model for supporting vulnerable complex families is delighted to be joining forces with Warrington Childrens Services to be part of this exciting, transformational work
This Principle Clinical Psychologist post will be a key MDT team member in BABS, and Warringtons Child Protection MDT Team and Multi Agency Hub. The post will involve delivery of direct therapeutic parent infant mental health support/interventions to vulnerable parents and babies in the community. In addition to working systemically with Childrens Services via offering a model of joint working, assessments, supervision, consultation, reflective practice and training to build workforce capacity and ensuring that vulnerable parents and babies receive the right, specialist, integrated support to help build secure bonds and break negative life cycles.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Supporting Parents and Babies in Warrington to have Stable Homes Built on Love
McCallisters Independent Review of Children Social Care (Reset, 2022) put a spotlight on the need for radical reform/reset in Childrens Services to better support our most vulnerable families, nationally. The Implementation Strategy and Consultation paper Stable Homes Built on Love (2023) was later published, shared with government and has resulted in a £200 million investment to reset Childrens Services across the UK. The golden thread and ethos throughout this new strategy mirrors the BABS model and service. The best way of promoting childrens welfare is by supporting childrens families and the loving relationships around them and recognises that To achieve this reset, Childrens Services must put love and stable relationships at the heart of everything it does.
Warrington Childrens Services has been selected as 1 of the UKs 7 national pathfinders to take ambitious action across six pillars to transform childrens Social Care; laying down the foundations for whole system reform and setting national direction for change. BABS being recognised nationally (PIF, 2024) and across other Merseyside as a Best practice parent infant mental health service and model for supporting vulnerable complex families is delighted to be joining forces with Warrington Childrens Services to be part of this exciting, transformational work
This Principle Clinical Psychologist post will be a key MDT team member in BABS, and Warringtons Child Protection MDT Team and Multi Agency Hub. The post will involve delivery of direct therapeutic parent infant mental health support/interventions to vulnerable parents and babies in the community. In addition to working systemically with Childrens Services via offering a model of joint working, assessments, supervision, consultation, reflective practice and training to build workforce capacity and ensuring that vulnerable parents and babies receive the right, specialist, integrated support to help build secure bonds and break negative life cycles.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
- Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist
Desirable
- Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
- Post-qualification specialist training in particular psychotherapeutic approaches e.g., video-interaction guidance, circle of security, cognitive analytic psychotherapy, dialectical behaviour therapy
Experience
Essential
- Assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist for a minimum of four years with 2 years at a highly specialist level.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in patient and residential care settings 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.
- Specialist experience in the area of perinatal mental health.
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision. Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care.
- Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
Desirable
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
- Experience of working within multicultural framework
- Experience of coproduction of supervising coproduction approaches to service development and service evaluation
Values
Essential
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulnes
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership styl
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Other
Essential
- Analytical and judgemental skills
- Ability to identify provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours
- Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings
- IT Literate
- The means, ability and willingness to travel in the course of performing duties
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
- Demonstrate a commitment to respecting and displaying the Trust Values at all times
Skills
Essential
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS. Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups
- Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology. Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS. Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience 50 hours supervision in a specific modality, case presentations, group supervision supported by short courses approved by the Psychology Head of Service
Desirable
- Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder
- dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc). Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies, including infant mental health
- Ability to demonstrate clinical leadership with a service sector
- Ability to contain and work within organisational stress Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological approaches and interest in models of service delivery and ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi -disciplinary team working.
Person Specification
Qualifications
Essential
- Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996) as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
- Registered with the Health Professions Council as a Clinical Psychologist
Desirable
- Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
- Post-qualification specialist training in particular psychotherapeutic approaches e.g., video-interaction guidance, circle of security, cognitive analytic psychotherapy, dialectical behaviour therapy
Experience
Essential
- Assessed experience of working as a qualified clinical psychologist for a minimum of four years with 2 years at a highly specialist level.
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course and presenting with the full range of clinical severity across the full range of care settings including outpatient, community, primary care, in patient and residential care settings 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.
- Specialist experience in the area of perinatal mental health.
- Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients' psychological care and treatment, both as a professionally qualified care coordinator and also within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
- Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision. Experience of representing psychology within the context of multidisciplinary care.
- Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
- Experience of working within a multicultural framework.
Desirable
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts
- Experience of working within multicultural framework
- Experience of coproduction of supervising coproduction approaches to service development and service evaluation
Values
Essential
- Continuous Improvement
- Accountability
- Respectfulnes
- Enthusiasm
- Support
- High professional standards
- Responsive to service users
- Engaging leadership styl
- Strong customer service belief
- Transparency and honesty
- Discreet
- Change oriented
Other
Essential
- Analytical and judgemental skills
- Ability to identify provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely challenging behaviours
- Ability to identify, and employ, as appropriate, clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Ability to develop and use complex multi-media materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings
- IT Literate
- The means, ability and willingness to travel in the course of performing duties
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice.
- Demonstrate a commitment to respecting and displaying the Trust Values at all times
Skills
Essential
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS. Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups
- Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of clinical psychology. Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health
- Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS. Formal training in supervision of other psychologists or equivalent experience 50 hours supervision in a specific modality, case presentations, group supervision supported by short courses approved by the Psychology Head of Service
Desirable
- Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g., personality disorder
- dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc). Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialised psychological therapies and assessment methodologies, including infant mental health
- Ability to demonstrate clinical leadership with a service sector
- Ability to contain and work within organisational stress Enthusiasm for a broad range of psychological approaches and interest in models of service delivery and ability to articulate the value added by clinical psychology services within the context of multi -disciplinary team working.
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
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).
