Lead Psychotherapist

We are seeking an experienced and skilled Lead Psychotherapist to join our team at Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. The successful candidate will be responsible for leading the development and delivery of our Parent-Infant Mental Health Service (PIMHS) in Brent, working closely with our Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist.

The post-holder will be based in Brent CAMHS and will have clinics in the community and in Family Hubs across Brent. The service will offer support to infants in the first two years of life with mild, moderate or severe mental and emotional health needs, and their parents/carers in the first two years postpartum who have mild to moderate mental health concerns, past or present, that causes a risk to the parent-infant relationship.

• To lead the systematic provision of a high-quality, highly specialist parent-infant psychotherapy service to clients of the CNWL PIMH service, across all sectors of care.
• To provide specialist, Parent-Infant interventions, including developing group work within the community, and/or virtually, and will contribute to implementing care plans for families with a range of mental health and social and emotional difficulties, particularly focusing on providing interventions flexibly which are adapted to the needs of infants and their mothers/carers in complex and varying degrees of illness and distress.
• To provide clinical supervision to parent-infant psychotherapists.
• To undertake and supervise highly specialist parent-infant psychotherapy assessment and treatments to service users, and support and signposting to families.
• To conduct, promote and facilitate audit and research within the perinatal field.
• To act as a specialist resource to the wider Trust and across the National professional community.
• To propose and implement policy changes within the area served by the team/service.

This post necessitates working directly and indirectly with women who have vulnerable infants and are experiencing complex and severe mental health difficulties. The post also necessitates the post holder to travel regularly across Brent and when necessary, to local community amenities or independent sector establishments often transporting test materials, audio-visual and IT equipment.

• Masters level preclinical training at an Association of Child Psychotherapists recognised training school; post graduate doctoral level training in clinical child psychotherapy at a training school accredited by the Association of Child Psychotherapy or Association of Child Psychotherapists Statement of Equivalence AND/OR Training in Parent-Infant Psychotherapy accredited by the BPC/UKCP
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in relevant fields in health, social care or education settings

• Able to demonstrate considerable experience of post-qualification experience
• Assessed experience of working as a qualified Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist for a significant time with an equally significant time at as a Grade 8a or equivalent
• Extensive experience of specialist psychotherapeutic assessment and treatment of children, adolescents and their parents as a full member of a multidisciplinary team located in community, primary care, outpatient or inpatient setting
• Experience of working with a wide variety of infants (age 0-2) and their parents, and presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity and complexity
• 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 raising and managing safeguarding concerns
• Experience of working in different CAMHS Tiers
• Experience of working with parent-infant psychotherapy
• Experience of the application of child psychotherapy in different cultural contexts
• Evidence of managing supervisory responsibilities, evidence of teaching about parent-infant theory and psychopathology
• Experience of supervising clinical work within the multidisciplinary team within a Clinical and Performance Management context
• Research interest in any topic relevant to PIMHS
• Experience of working within a multi-cultural framework

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychotherapeutic assessment, intervention and management
• Ability to demonstrate leadership
• Knowledge of infant mental health
• High level of knowledge of the theory and practice of short and long-term intervention and its application to a specialist area
• Ability to carry out audit and research in the area of perinatal and infant mental health
• Advanced specialist Knowledge of newborns, early infancy and child development and of theories of infant and child mental health
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to children and adolescents including child protection procedures and policies
• Ability to tolerate anxiety without recourse to premature action whilst appreciating the role of the supervisor
• Awareness of the implications of working within a managed system
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups
• Ability to monitor and assess risk and act accordingly
• Ability to create a therapeutic milieu for parents and infants together
• Ability to carry out audit and research
• Knowledge of NHS, Social Care and Education Structures, National policies and frameworks
• Knowledge of research methodology and outcome research design and ability to critically interpret research findings
• Awareness and understanding of basic research procedures and capacity to conduct simple audits of clinical work carried out by self and others

• Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice
• A commitment to the evaluation of services and a wish to continue to develop expertise in the service area
• 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 keep accurate notes and records
• Evidence of continuing professional development
• Ability to teach and train others and present the work of Parent-infant mental health within public, professional and academic settings

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.