Senior Clinical Psychologist

**Maternal Mental Health Service**:
A fantastic opportunity has arisen to be involved in the development and delivery of a specialist birth trauma and perinatal loss service; the ‘Maternal Mental Health Service’ (MMHS). As detailed within the NHS Long Term Plan (January 2019), the newly commissioned, integrated NHS Maternal Mental Health Service, known locally in Kent and Medway as ‘Thrive - Psychological Support for Birth Trauma and Perinatal Loss’ offers evidence-based assessment and psychological therapy to women and birthing people with moderate-severe or complex mental health difficulties, specifically psychological trauma, directly resulting from or associated with the maternity experience.

Thrive is a 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, community service. Thrive is not a crisis or emergency service, and does not care co-ordinate.

Being a part-time role, the actual days are to be advised / negotiable but will be 30 hours per week / 4 days per week. The locality for this role is North Kent (Dartford), however the post holder must be willing (and have the ability) to travel across the county (Kent and Medway-wide) as required.

Come and work with us in the Garden of England where we combine exceptional professional development opportunities with a tremendous quality of life.

We are Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT), providing mental health, learning disability and specialist services, serving 1.8 million people across the county.

The Trust (rated Good overall by the CQC and Outstanding for care) has 3,283 staff working in 66 buildings across 33 locations, covering an area of 1,450 square miles.

You will be joining friendly, passionate colleagues, rich in their diversity, who are committed to providing excellent care to our service users and their loved ones.

The nature of our work attracts kindness and compassion as standard and everyone from our cleaners and porters to the chief executive and chairman are recognised as playing a vital role in providing an exemplary service.

**CORE CLINICAL FUNCTION**:

- For all clinical and non-clinical, direct and indirect practice to be trauma-informed to the benefit of all women and birthing people of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
- To provide psychological trauma formulations and interventions as recommended by NICE guidelines and current literature (i.e. TF-CBT and EMDR).
- Proactively and successfully work with partner agencies, women and birthing people, families, partners and community staff to ensure access/signposting to the most appropriate care.
- Draw upon and conduct specialist and complex assessments using a variety of data in order to develop psychological formulations that inform evidence-base clinical interventions for individuals, families, groups and other professionals presenting with highly complex problems.
- To effectively communicate, both written and verbally, outcomes of specialist and complex assessments, formulations and interventions to women and people, family / carers and others in a skilled, reflexive and sensitive manner.
- Provide psycho-social intervention, education and support to develop individuals’ understanding of mental illness with aim to prevent relapse and admission.
- To monitor and evaluate progress during the course of their care.
- Develop recovery plans in line with Perinatal Mental Health Service Standards and National Guidance.
- Liaise with staff in a variety of settings, ensuring that teams are able to respond effectively and efficiently to the needs of people with mental health problems in their care.
- Attend MDT meetings to provide guidance / advice / consulting / referring / allocation / input / learn about women and people / agree care plans.
- Ensure the maintenance of accurate and timely documentation / records on all women and people in line with relevant professional codes and Trust policy
- To undertake psychologically based risk assessment and risk management for women and people, and provide advice on the psychological aspects of risk to the multi-disciplinary team
- Identify, assess and manage clinical and non-clinical risks / hazards in their area through the completion of the relevant risk assessments and the implementation of risk treatment plans for inclusion in the local and Trust’s risk registers through the Risk Management department.
- Document and report incidents as required i.e. risk and health and safety.

CORE NON-CLINICAL FUNCTION (INCLUDING TEACHING, TRAINING, SUPERVISION AND CONSULTATION):

- To support and lead the team in developing a robust psychology service which adheres to strong clinical governance and offers high quality care in line with current guidance and evidence.
- Ensure junior staff are appropriately inducted, receive appropriate clinical supervision, have an annual appraisal and are compliant with mandatory training requirements. Where appropriate this may also include the requirement for