Job Overview

The perinatal service is a small specialist service supported within our wider secondary mental health service structure. The service boasts a senior manager, consultant psychiatrist, two nurses, a midwife and a peer worker. The principal purpose of this clinical psychologist role is to improve the psychological health and wellbeing of clients using the Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service and to offer psychologically informed expertise to the service and colleagues as part of the Government of Jersey’s Mental Health Care Group. Jersey is a small island off the north coast of France which offers successful candidates an opportunity to experience island life in a warmer climate whilst still maintaining links with the UK (and internationally). We offer competitive rates of pay and a generous relocation package.

For an informal discussion please contact Dr John Cartmell on j.cartmell@health.gov.je.

Job Purpose

This flexible role involves providing individual and systemic support to women and their families within the community. The focus will be on delivering formulation based and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended psychological interventions to women with moderate to severe mental health difficulties who are pregnant or within 24 months of the postnatal period in the context of a multidisciplinary team. The purpose of this role is to work with women and their families who may be experiencing transgenerational patterns of trauma, attachment and parent and infant mental health, to offer training and supervision in a range of interventions and to be responsible for the delivery and support of NICE informed care pathways in order to benefit women and families open to the perinatal service. The post holder will be responsible for psychological formulation and treatment of perinatal mental health presentations, including the parent-infant relationship, maternal Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), ante/postnatal depression and anxiety and birth Post Trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Statutory Responsibilities

The post holder will have to comply with all relevant States Laws, such as the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 and any other associated legislation, Standing Orders, Financial Directions, and other relevant Codes of Practice, in respect of managing the key project deliverables of programmes and costs through the active management of procurement, approval, financial and administrative procedures. To be responsible for your own health and safety and that of your colleagues, in accordance with the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law, 1989 To work in accordance with the Data Protection (Jersey) Law Active engagement, participation and compliance with any other statutory responsibilities applicable to the role, as amended from time to time. This role is politically restricted. The jobholder is not permitted to undertake political activity involving standing for election to the States or as a Parish Constable, or publicly supporting someone who is standing for election or playing a public part in any political manner.

Job Specific Outcomes 1 of 2

To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the perinatal team based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care in order to inform psychological formulations of clients open to the perinatal service. To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings in order to intervene effectively with clients and their families open to the perinatal service. To provide group therapy and individual psychotherapeutic interventions, according to appropriate psychologically informed models in order to influence change for mothers and their families. To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group, in order to ensure psychological intervention is effective in addressing identified mental health difficulties

Job Specific Outcomes 2 of 2

To communicate, in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of patients under your care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multidisciplinary care to ensure client engagement and understanding of therapeutic change processes. To promote a psychological perspective both within the perinatal team and more broadly with other services and colleagues group in order to democratise psychological knowledge among perinatal colleagues, clients and aligned services. To offer professional post-graduate teaching, training and supervision, as appropriate including preand post-qualification teaching of clinical psychology in order to maintain contemporary knowledge in the area and develop the next generation of clinicians. To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit, in order to ensure approaches to care are evidenced based and practically effective in addressing identified mental health difficulties within the perinatal client group and their families.

Qualifications

ESSENTIAL:

• Doctorate in Clinical Psychology qualification or equivalent
• Registered with Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Psychologist.

DESIRABLE:

• Specialist perinatal training or supervised practice
• Two or more qualifications in NICE recommended therapies, relevant to perinatal population.

Knowledge

ESSENTIAL:

• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of how to carry out risk assessments.
• Familiarity with codes of practice of Health and Social Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• Knowledge of Jersey mental health legislation and policies.
• Good understanding of safeguarding adults and children, and knowledge of policies and procedures relating to Child Protection.
• Evidence of Clinical Professional Development, as required by the HCPC.

DESIRABLE:

• Good understanding of perinatal period, impacts on parents and relationships and comorbid experiences
• Knowledge of a trauma informed care framework.
• Understanding of the supervision of others in a professional and clinical capacity.
• Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework.
• Knowledge of the literature of the specialism.

Technical Work Based Skills

ESSENTIAL:

• Able to demonstrate a range of information technology skills, i.e. an ability to effectively use IT equipment and role critical software.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Well-developed skills for assessing clients in specialist caseload.

DESIRABLE:

• Skills in the delivery of psychologically informed groups

General skills / attributes

ESSENTIAL:

• To be able to provide a qualified psychology service to patients of the Perinatal service including the provision of specialist psychological assessment and therapy, working within the policies, procedures and protocols applicable to the service. To be able to offer advice and consultation on patients’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers (e.g. partners of women attending the service).
• To be able to work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the services policies and procedures.
• Strong leadership qualities, resilience and Proficiency in both individual and group therapy approaches. ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty.
• To be able to develop skills in consultancy by consulting informally to multi-disciplinary team colleagues under supervision.
• Skills in the effective communication of highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to a wide variety of recipients, including the ability to produce comprehensive and coherent letters, reports and associated documentation.
• Ability to implement complex assessment and develop appropriate formulations, inclusive of factors contributing to service user’s risk and the development of strategies for their mitigation.
• Supports the development of and shares learning with other members of staff. Skill in providing advice and consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Ability to adapt personal style in order to influence others and gain support for ideas.
• To demonstrate empathy towards individual clients.

Experience

ESSENTIAL:

• A minimum of 2 years’ experience of working with with people from across the life span with a range of mental health issues and cognitive profiles.
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment across a wide range of care settings, including for example outpatient, community, primary care, inpatient and perinatal care.
• Experience of planning and exercising full clinical responsibility for patients' psychological care and treatment within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
• Experience across a range of psychological models including systemic, behavioural and individual therapeutic interventions.
• To work with relational complexity with skill, sensitivity and compassion.
• To supervise and teach unqualified staff including students

DESIRABLE:

• Experience of working effectively within a multidisciplinary team
• Experience of working with service users who find it difficult to engage with standard care. Supervised perinatal practice.
• Experience of developing and delivering training programmes for staff.
• Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Personal Attributes

Appointees to this role will be required to adhere to and perform their duties in line with the standards identified in the States of Jersey tier 6 core accountabilities attributes and behaviour indicators.