Job Overview
The opportunity has arisen for a suitably qualified Parent-Infant Psychotherapist post within the Brent and Harrow Community Perinatal Mental Health Service.
This position is open to applicants who have a substantial number of years post‑qualification experience. Appropriately qualified candidates with demonstrable expertise and experience in perinatal mental health who have fewer years of post‑qualification experience may also be considered.
As a Parent‑Infant Psychotherapist, you will contribute to specialist interventions for families offered an extended period of care and provide psychotherapeutic treatment that promotes the quality of the relationship between the mother and her infant.
The service offers a review at 12 months post‑natal for provisions of Extended Period of Care up to 24 months post‑natal. We also provide Partner’s Screening for mental health needs in significant others and additional signposting.
The team provides a Monday‑Friday, 9:00‑5:00 service based at the Mental Health Unit, Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow. The successful applicant will be expected to have the flexibility to work occasional extended opening hours to facilitate early or late clinic appointments, home visits or training.
Key Responsibilities
* Provide an efficient, effective, comprehensive and specialist psychological assessment and psychotherapy treatment plan for women and their partners during the perinatal period.
* Offer an opinion on diagnosis/formulation to patients seen within the Perinatal Service in discussion with the Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist.
* Provide highly specialist expertise gained in post‑qualification specialist training to perinatal patients presenting with complex and persistent mental health problems.
* Advise and consult from a psychological perspective on the parent‑infant relationship and psychotherapeutic care for psychologists, non‑psychologists and other relevant professionals.
* 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 service’s policies and procedures.
* Undertake and oversee audit and research activity in the sector.
* Offer highly specialised clinical work – both assessment and treatment – for distressed pregnant and postnatal women suffering from perinatal mental health disorders.
Clinical Responsibilities
* Exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by the MDT and psychotherapeutic based care plans, ensuring appropriate assessment, formulation and intervention.
* Provide highly specialist psychotherapeutic assessments including biopsychosocial assessments.
* Formulate and devise parent‑infant psychotherapeutic treatment and management plans for referred patients and provide psychotherapeutic treatment using specialist methods and techniques as appropriate.
* Evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account theoretical and therapeutic models as well as highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes.
* Offer the most appropriate treatment for patients in cooperation with other multidisciplinary team members.
* Provide highly specialist interventions for severely disturbed mother‑infant attachment in the antenatal and postnatal period.
* Offer highly specialist interventions during the post‑partum period to mothers, their babies and/or the parental couple and their infant.
* Develop group therapeutic interventions with new mothers and their infants.
* Act as a Lead Professional for the client where appropriate, ensuring a care package appropriate for the client’s needs, coordinating the work of others involved with care, arranging care reviews and communicating effectively with the client, their family and others involved in care.
* 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 with the aim of overall risk reduction.
Person Specification
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 (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist or with the ACP as a Psychotherapist or equivalent PIP Professional accreditation.
Desirable criteria
* Post‑doctoral/qualifying training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice such as couples work, CBT, groups etc.
* Formal training in Parent Infant Psychotherapy or Psychoanalytic parent infant psychotherapy.
Previous Experience
Essential criteria
* Assessed experience of working as a psychotherapist (honorary, trainee or paid) in a relevant perinatal or CAMHS setting, including MDT working.
* Experience of working in an adult mental health or perinatal service either during training or pre‑ or post‑qualification.
* Experience of exercising clinical responsibility for clients’ psychotherapeutic care and treatment, either as a trainee under supervision or as a professionally qualified care coordinator within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
* Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
Desirable criteria
* Post‑qualification experience working in a CMHT or similar multi‑disciplinary mental health team.
* Experience representing Psychology or Psychotherapy within the context of multidisciplinary care.
* Experience supervising other mental health staff.
Other Essential Criteria
* Ability to identify, provide and promote appropriate means of support to carers and staff exposed to highly distressing situations and severely 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 and challenging behaviour.
Desirable criteria
* Ability to develop and use complex multi‑media 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 who are 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 the area of perinatal mental health.
* Advanced specialist knowledge of newborns, 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 criteria
* Experience applying psychological interventions in different cultural contexts.
* Experience teaching, training on pre‑registration courses and case consultation to other psychotherapists.
* Experience working in different adult tiers.
* Experience carrying out audit and research in clinical settings.
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