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Job overview

We are looking for a Clinical or Counselling Psychologist, with an interest in Perinatal work to join our friendly and supportive Specialist Community Perinatal Mental Health Team. This position is a fixed contract to cover a secondment.  You would be using your skills in a rewarding and fulfilling way to help women, their partners and babies at a crucial point in their lives; delivering a perinatal service across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. 

The team offer care to families in the perinatal period (through pregnancy and currently up to two years postnatally). You would be required to provide specialist psychological assessments and interventions for often complex presenting problems, giving consideration to the mother-baby relationship at all times and liaising with colleagues within the team and those in other mental health and maternity teams. Interventions are delivered using a blend of remote and face to face work.  

We provide highly specialist advice, support and oversight of the BNSSG perinatal mental health pathway from preconception through to the infant’s second birthday.  We hold a direct caseload of mothers and pregnant women who are experiencing moderate to severe perinatal difficulties, where the level of these difficulties exceeds the expertise of primary care or general mental health services – and may include those who are currently well but at high risk of relapse.

Main duties of the job

One of the roles is to lead in the provision of high quality evidence-based psychological treatments to those in the perinatal period with complex co-morbidity, providing individually tailored psychological treatment programmes addressing problems such as severe depression and anxiety, perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), bipolar disorder, personality disorder and psychosis. The  post holder  will provide both direct psychological therapy and supervision and training to other staff, enabling the provision of high quality psychologically informed practice and support within both  community and in-patient settings.

The post holder will work as a member of the multidisciplinary team, facilitating the integration of a psychological perspective into the team’s understanding of the clinical issues.

The post holder will also provide consultation to other professionals, especially where there are uncertainties around diagnosis and formulation.

They will contribute to training and reflective practice forums to support the professional development of their teams, and will supervise other disciplines in the provision of high quality psychological treatments.

Specialist supervision for the post holder will be provided by the team’s Band 8C/ 8A Clinical Psychologists.

Working for our organisation

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

Childbirth and the transition to parenthood are associated with substantial psychiatric and psychological vulnerability. Severe mental health difficulties in the perinatal period present differently, often occurring with no, or very little, warning, and require prompt expert intervention. In addition to the focus on maternal mental health, specialist perinatal mental health services also consider the infant and mother-infant relationship. Promoting emotional and physical wellbeing and development of the parent and infant bond are central to service provision within high quality perinatal mental health services.