Principal Practitioner Psychologist

Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnic minorities, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------, This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a relatively new psychology service within Mental Health Urgent Care in Mersey Care. The service works in to the Crisis Resolution and Home Treatment teams, First Response Service (crisis line), Core 24 AED liaison, and Liaison & Diversion services across the trust. The successful candidate will join an existing team of practitioner psychologists and assistant psychologists.
The multi-disciplinary leadership team in Mental Health Urgent Care is very keen to support a strong psychological provision and wider intervention pathways. The successful candidate will hold a leadership role, supporting the consultant clinical psychologist in developing a positive psychology influence, and there will be a large service development flavour to these posts as we establish and build new ways of working in Mental Health Urgent Care.
If you have a passion for providing exceptional care and are looking for an exciting, and challenging role within urgent care services, we would welcome your talents and skills. We would welcome you getting in touch to discuss the role further.
The post is based in Peasley Cross, St Helens, but travel between bases and around the Mersey Care patch will be required., The successful candidate will be providing leadership, clinical supervision, reflective practice, consultation, and training for psychology staff and the wider MDT. They will also work directly with patients, offering psychological assessments, formulations and therapeutic interventions, both individually and in group format, where indicated. The post holder will have a strong interest and commitment to working with complex psychological presentations, in particular those experiencing mental health crises. Experience of research, audit, and teaching would be beneficial, and experience in supervising trainees is essential.
The post holder will have opportunities for continuing professional development, including training in specific therapeutic modalities and in leadership. They will also be encouraged to contribute to the professional development of other staff members.

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.

Should you require a reasonable adjustment to our recruitment process please email [email protected] to ensure that measures can be put in place to support you.
We reserve the right to close any vacancy earlier than advertised in exceptional circumstances once we have received a high volume of applications.
The Trust expects all post holders who require an enhanced DBS for their role subscribe to the DBS Update Service. You will be required to enrol for this service for a fee of £13 per year and maintain registration. Trans applicants who require a DBS check and do not want to reveal details of their previous identity can contact the DBS Sensitive Applications Team or email [email protected]) with their application number once they have completed their DBS application form. The team can prevent any previous identity showing on the DBS Certificate, unless the applicant has a conviction under their previous details in which case this will need to be disclosed.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Please be advised that the use of Artificial Intelligence on applications is monitored and if you choose to use this, you must declare this on your application form.
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