Practitioner Psychologist, Psychotherapist

Overview

Practitioner Psychologist, Psychotherapist & Psychological Therapist

The closing date is 23 October 2025

1 year fixed term contract or 1 year secondment band 8b 0.4wte Practitioner Psychologist, Psychotherapist or Psychological Therapist. This is a maternity cover post to provide clinical leadership for psychological therapies for the STEP (Southwark Team for Early Psychosis). We are looking for a hard working and enthusiastic member of staff with a strong track record of delivering psychological therapies within a stepped care model. The successful candidate will have a good understanding of early intervention for psychosis and have the required leadership qualities to ensure the provision of high quality psychological therapies.

Main duties of the job

The main duty of this post is to oversee the psychological therapy offer within the STEP team which is delivered on a stepped care basis. The role involves clinical management and supervision, direct clinical work (CBTp, EMDR and/or family interventions), consultation and service development responsibilities. The post holder will work closely with the STEP team leader and will be supported by the professional lead for the psychosis pathway.

We are looking for people with a track record of delivering interventions that improve accessibility for groups under-represented in psychological therapy services.

Southwark is a diverse borough and the postholder will work to engage with the local community and take their needs into consideration to provide an accessible service.

About us

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We deliver specialist services in the London boroughs of Croydon, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Wandsworth and Richmond.

We are committed to provide a high quality and specialist care to our service users and we are recognised for our care and treatment we provide. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as 'good'.

We launched our five-year strategy, Aiming High; Changing Lives in 2021 together with Our Care Improvement System as our quality management system methodology to make a positive impact on patient care, outcomes and staff experience. By joining SLaM, all staff will get the opportunity to be part of this exciting improvement journey supported with learning and development to harness everyone's potential as change makers.

The trust recognises the unique and valuable contribution that people with lived experience of mental illness can bring to a role. We therefore welcome applications from people with lived experience and consider them as an asset to the Trust.

Job responsibilities

To develop, co-ordinate and ensure the systematic provision of a psychological therapy service for the STEP team and personally provide highly specialist clinical input.

To contribute to enabling other staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment.

To provide clinical supervision and consultation as appropriate, functioning as a lead specialist in the STEP team.

To ensure that systems are in place and working effectively for the clinical and professional supervision and support of other psychological practitioners.

To promote service evaluation, audit, research and policy development.

To work as an autonomous professional within registration body guidelines and codes of conduct, and guided by principles and policies or procedures of the service, taking responsibility for interpreting policies within defined parameters.

To agree outcomes/results with clinical/professional lead and to decide how they are best achieved.

To support the coordination of staff support within their area, working closely with Corporate Psychology and Psychotherapy to support colleagues and ensure all staff in SLaM have access to evidence based support. To participate, as a recipient, in staff support work when appropriate.

Person Specification

Qualifications

- Professional qualification leading to registration with appropriate psychology/psychotherapy professional body.
- Additional training leading to accreditation in an evidence-based approach for complex presentations, through formal post-qualification training (PG Diploma or equivalent), OR a combination of specialist short courses, or an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice-based learning in a specialist area of clinical practice, assessed by an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma.

Experience

- Evidence of having worked as a clinical specialist under supervision in a service providing an evidence-based therapy for complex presentations
- Experience of assessment and treatment of clients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature
- Experience of specialist psychotherapy assessment and treatment of patients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature.
- Experience of supervising psychologists and/or psychotherapists and having completed the relevant training.
- Experience of managing staff/integrated health services/ co-ordinating a range of complex, multidisciplinary clinical services and ability to show leadership skills.
- Proven track record of managing organisational change and development of clinical services; Able to negotiate with colleagues at all levels in the organisation
- Proven ability to develop and change practice through systems work.

Knowledge

- Highly developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies for service users with complex mental health problems, particularly psychosis, e.g. CBTp, FIp/OD and related interventions/training for frontline professionals
- Advanced theoretical knowledge of psychopathology and the evidence base for the relevant treatments for this client group
- Doctoral-equivalent level knowledge of psychological research methodology and complex statistical analysis

Skills

- To select and administer specialist psychological assessments, interpreting and integrating complex data that require analysis, interpretation and comparison, drawn from several sources, on which expert opinion may differ.
- To deliver psychological therapy across cultural and other differences.
- To plan projects and work schedules for groups of psychological therapists.

Ability

- Ability to work effectively within a multi-disciplinary team, contributing to effective team functioning and holding team roles.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate.
- Ability to manage emotionally stressful situations such as working with victims of abuse or trauma, or with people who engage in severe self-harming or aggressive behaviour.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

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.

South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

£72,921 to £83,362 a year per annum incl. of inner HCAs pro rata

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