The Early Intervention Teams in Widnes and St Helens are specialist secondary care community mental health teams who work with First Episode Psychosis. We are looking for a caring and committed person who is trained and accredited in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to join us and be part of a large team of psychologists, CBT/EMDR therapists, occupational therapists, mental health nurses, support workers and psychiatrists.
You will be joining a hard working and busy team providing CBT for people who experience symptoms of psychosis and bipolar affective disorder. You will also be working with clients who experience severe anxiety related difficulties, depression and PTSD. Your role would be to provide CBT as per NICE guidance within our EI team.
We also have clients who sit on our At Risk Mental State (ARMS) pathway who require CBT for trauma, depression and anxiety but who may also experience milder psychotic-type symptoms.
The early intervention teams in Widnes and St Helens provides high quality intervention based care for clients who have a GP in Halton, Warrington, Knowsley and St Helens.
You will receive regular supervision from a consultant clinical psychologist who is qualified in CBT for psychosis and bipolar affective disorder and be supported to follow CPD opportunities to further develop your career.
Please note there is 1 x Full-time post & 1 x Part-time post available.
Key Responsibilities
* To work as part of the multi-disciplinary teams based in Widnes and St Helens, providing a qualified specialist cognitive behavioural psychotherapy service to clients with psychosis and/or bipolar affective disorder.
* To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy, offering advice and consultation on client's psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, nonprofessional carers. To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Directorate's and team's policies and procedures. To utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.
* To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team 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.
* To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.
* To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses where appropriate.
* 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.
* To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
* To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment and treatment of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based enhanced care plans.
* To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
* To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
* 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.
* 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 unidiscplinary and multidisciplinary care.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
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.
Please refer to attached Job Description and Person Specification for full list of duties and responsibilities.
This advert closes on Thursday 16 Apr 2026.
#J-18808-Ljbffr