Job overview
Come and join our expanding psychological therapies team within a passionate and friendly service.
The Specialist Perinatal Service is a well-established multidisciplinary community team providing a range of tailored approaches to meet the mental health needs of women, birthing people, and their families in the perinatal period. We were recently recognised at GMMH’s Celebrating Excellence Awards.
Our core purpose is to work with women, birthing people to address their mental health needs and mitigate any impact on the unborn baby and infant. We aim to provide a timely, integrated, high quality, and effective service.
An exciting and rewarding opportunity has arisen to develop services by offering a permanent Band 8a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist ( We are keen to consider applications from individuals with direct perinatal experience or those seeking to develop their skills in a new and innovative role.
Main duties of the job
Job description and main responsibilities
The post holder will undertake initial assessments and direct therapeutic work with women/birthing people experiencing a wide range of mental health problems, often relating to complex trauma or attachment difficulties.
There are also opportunities for indirect working, including supervision, consultation, and training to both colleagues within the Specialist Perinatal Team and wider systems, including PETALS (the maternal mental health service), maternity services, perinatal IAPT, specialist psychotherapy services and parent-infant mental health services.
The post offers an incredibly supportive team working environment. The successful post holder will receive regular and consistent line management, clinical and professional supervision, and develop relationships with established psychologists and psychological therapists (family therapy, CBT, IPT) working within the service who regularly meet for ongoing CPD, discussion of clinical / professional issues and invaluable peer support. There are also opportunities for professional development and additional internal training is actively encouraged and supported.
Our service is keen to recruit people who enjoy working in a multi-disciplinary team, who are passionate, creative, adaptable, and responsive to working with and meeting the needs of women, birthing people, partners, and families during such a fundamentally important and crucial time.
Working for our organisation
Greater Manchester Mental Health (GMMH) Foundation Trust employs over 6,400 members of staff, who deliver services from more than 160 locations.
We provide inpatient and community-based mental health care for people living in Bolton, the city of Manchester, Salford, Trafford and the borough of Wigan, and a wide range of specialist mental health and substance misuse services across Greater Manchester, the north west of England and beyond.
Greater Manchester is one of the world's most innovative, original and exciting places to live and work. From the beauty of the surrounding countryside to the heart of the vibrant inner city with great shopping, entertainment and dining options.
Wherever you go you will experience a great northern welcome with people famed for their warmth, humour and generosity.
Our people enjoy their work, have opportunities to learn and develop their skills and are encouraged to generate new ideas that improve care for our service users.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
See attached detailed job description and person specification:
Staff benefits
1. Pay Enhancements – 30% additional for Evenings (8pm onwards) and Saturdays and 60% additional for Sundays and Bank holidays.
2. 27 days annual leave plus bank holidays rising to 29 after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years
3. Excellent pension
4. Cycle to work scheme
5. Salary sacrifice car scheme
6. Wellbeing programme
Person specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential criteria
7. Professional qualification in Clinical / Counselling Psychology at doctoral level (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996)
8. Registration as a Clinical Psychologist / Counselling Psychologist with the HCPC
Desirable criteria
9. Post qualification training in a specialised area of psychological practice ( CBT, IPT, CFT, EMDR, Systemic, CAT, DBT etc)
10. Training in recognised Parent Infant Mental Health courses
11. Completed formal training in supervision
Experience
Essential criteria
12. Experience of working as a qualified psychological therapist
13. Experience of working with client groups experiencing moderate-severe mental health problems across the life span
14. Experience of delivering structured psychological interventions to clients with complex psychological problems
15. Experience of working with trauma and providing trauma-focused psychological therapy
16. Experience of exercising full clinical responsibility for clients’ psychological care and treatment
17. Experience of working within a multidisciplinary team
18. Experience of providing supervision
19. Experience of providing teaching and training
Desirable criteria
20. Experience of working in specialist perinatal services
21. Experience of working in parent-infant mental health settings, where the child is less than 2 years old
Knowledge
Essential criteria
22. Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, including complex multivariate data analysis as practiced within the field of psychology
23. Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in difficult to treat groups ( cPTSD, dual diagnosis, people with additional disabilities etc)
24. Practitioner level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies
25. Evidence of Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Desirable criteria
26. Knowledge of policy and legislation in relation to perinatal mental health
Skills and Abilities
Essential criteria
27. Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
28. Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
29. Skills in formulation of dynamic risk and development and implementation of positive risk management plans
30. Ability to organise time effectively
31. Ability to use own initiative and to work under supervision where appropriate
32. Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team and to liaise effectively with other professionals
Desirable criteria
33. Skills in providing consultation to other professionals and non-professional groups
Other Requirements
Essential criteria
34. Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings
35. 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
36. Ability to travel to a range of locations in a timely and efficient manner.
Desirable criteria
37. Experience of working within a multicultural framework
Applicants are encouraged to apply for posts at Greater Manchester Mental Health who have direct experience of mental health, learning disability or drug and alcohol services either as a service user or a carer.
The Trust is also committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults and requires all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.
We are aspiring to ensure our workforce is representative of the diverse communities that we serve, and we are strongly committed to removing barriers to employment for candidates from under-represented groups, for example BAME, Disabled and LGBT+ communities. If you would like to have an informal chat about the recruitment process for this role or would value some additional support, we’d love to hear from you.
Do you have experience outside the NHS?
We want to attract and retain people with diverse skills and experience, to deliver inclusive healthcare services to our communities.
We will consider relevant experience outside the NHS to calculate your salary on appointment.