Job Overview
The opportunity has arisen for a suitably qualified Parent-Infant Psychotherapist post within the Brent and Harrow Community Perinatal Mental Health Service. Applicants with substantial post-qualification experience are preferred, though candidates with demonstrable expertise and less experience may also be considered. The role involves contributing to specialist interventions for families, providing psychotherapeutic treatment to promote the relationship between mothers and infants. Review appointments will occur at 12 months post-natal, with extended care available up to 24 months. Partners will be screened for mental health needs and additional signposting offered.
Service hours are Monday‑Friday 09:00‑17:00 at the Mental Health Unit, Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, with flexibility for extended opening hours to accommodate early or late clinic appointments, home visits or training.
Main Duties and Responsibilities
* The post requires a flexible approach with a broad range of applied psychotherapeutic techniques, tailored to the variety and time‑specific nature of treatment during pregnancy, around birth and in the postnatal first year.
* Post‑qualification experience in perinatal mental health, especially parent‑infant interventions in complex high‑risk cases, is required. The postholder will develop outreach clinics for pregnant and postnatal women with mental health problems while working autonomously.
* Deliver an efficient, effective, comprehensive and specialist psychological assessment and psychotherapy treatment plan for women and their partners during the perinatal period, including patients with moderate and severe, highly complex and persistent mental health problems.
* Offer opinions on diagnosis and formulation to patients seen within the Perinatal Service in discussion with the Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist.
* Provide specialist expertise gained in post‑qualification specialist training to perinatal patients with complex and persistent mental health problems.
* Advise and consult from a psychological perspective around parent‑infant relationships to psychologists, non‑psychologist colleagues, and other non‑professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the service’s policies and procedures.
* Be informed by evidence‑based practice and participate in audit, policy, service development and research within the team.
* Work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures.
* Undertake and oversee audit and research activity in the sector.
* Offer highly specialised clinical work – both assessment and treatment – to distressed pregnant and postnatal women suffering from perinatal mental health disorders.
* Prepare to assist with extended opening hours for early or late clinic appointments, home visits, or training sessions.
Clinical Responsibilities
* Exercise autonomous professional responsibility for assessment, treatment and discharge of clients, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and intervention.
* Provide highly specialist psychotherapeutic assessments, including biopsychosocial assessments.
* Formulate and devise parent‑infant psychotherapeutic treatment and management plans; provide treatment using specialist methods and techniques.
* Evaluate and decide on treatment options, considering theoretical and therapeutic models and complex factors such as historical and developmental processes.
* Offer appropriate treatment in cooperation with other multidisciplinary team members.
* Offer highly specialist interventions for severely disturbed mother‑infant attachment during antenatal and postnatal periods.
* Provide specialised intervention during the post‑partum period to mothers, babies, or parental couples, as appropriate.
* Develop group therapeutic interventions with new mothers and their infants.
* Act as a Lead Professional for the client, ensuring a suitable care package, coordinating the work of others, arranging reviews, and communicating effectively with the client, family and other care providers.
* Undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management, in line with Trust and inter‑agency policies and procedures.
Education and Qualifications
Essential Criteria
* Post‑graduate or doctoral level training in Parent‑Infant Psychotherapy or in Child or Adult psychotherapy with a Parent‑Infant component.
* Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council as a Practitioner Psychologist or with the ACP as a Psychotherapist or equivalent PIP Professional accreditation.
Desirable Criteria
* Post‑doctoral or additional specialised training such as couples work, CBT, groups, etc.
* Formal training in Parent‑Infant Psychotherapy or Psychoanalytic parent‑infant psychotherapy.
Previous Experience
Essential Criteria
* Experience as a psychotherapist in a perinatal or CAMHS setting, including multidisciplinary team working.
* Experience working in adult mental health or perinatal service either during training or post‑qualification.
* Experience exercising clinical responsibility for clients’ psychotherapeutic care and treatment, either under supervision or as a care coordinator within a multidisciplinary care plan.
* Experience of teaching, training and/or clinical supervision.
Desirable Criteria
* Post‑qualification experience in a CMHT or similar multidisciplinary mental health team.
* Experience representing Psychology or Psychotherapy within multidisciplinary care.
* Experience supervising other mental health staff.
Other
Essential Criteria
* Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severe challenging behaviour.
* Ability to identify and employ clinical governance mechanisms for the support and maintenance of clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material.
Desirable Criteria
* Ability to develop and use complex multimedia materials for presentations in public, professional and academic settings.
* Experience working within a multicultural framework.
Skills, Knowledge, Abilities
Essential Criteria
* Extensive experience of specialist psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment of pregnant and postpartum women.
* Extensive experience working with a wide variety of children and parents across the whole age range presenting with different problems.
* Experience working with mothers and families with severe mental illness and risk to self.
* Ability to carry out audit and research in perinatal mental health.
* Advanced specialist knowledge of newborns, early infancy and child development, and 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 Criteria
* Experience of applying psychological interventions in different cultural contexts.
* Experience of teaching, training on pre‑registration courses and case consultation to other psychotherapists.
* Experience of working in different adult tiers.
* Experience carrying out audit and research in clinical settings.
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