Specialist Psychological Therapist – CBT in Reading

As a senior clinician, you will conduct specialist psychologically informed CBT assessments, case formulations, and deliver evidence-based interventions to service users with mild to moderate mental health difficulties within Getting Help Services. You will carry out comprehensive risk assessments, develop risk management plans, and liaise with other services for wider case management. You will oversee and develop the clinical practice of low and high intensity practitioners, supervise and train junior staff, and support service development, quality improvement, audits, and research initiatives. Committed to accessibility and inclusivity, you will promote wellbeing for diverse service users and colleagues. Working autonomously within policies and guidelines, you will engage in collaborative, multi-agency working and user involvement. Travel across Trust sites and mixed-mode service delivery, including online and home-based work, is required.

Main duties of the job

• Deliver highly specialist CBT assessments and interventions, including risk assessment, formulation-led treatment plans, and case management, ensuring care is evidence-based, inclusive, and recovery-focused.
• Oversee and develop clinical practice across low and high intensity psychological practitioners, providing supervision, training, CPD, and professional support to staff and trainees.
• Provide specialist clinical advice, consultation, and guidance to colleagues, carers, multi-agency teams, and partner services, promoting a psychologically informed, trauma-aware, and anti-racist framework.
• Lead, coordinate, and chair multi-agency and multidisciplinary meetings, managing caseloads and waiting lists, and ensuring continuity of care and safe transitions for service users.
• Maintain high-quality records, data collection, outcome monitoring, and reporting, ensuring compliance with professional, Trust, and regulatory standards.
• Contribute to service development, audit, research, quality improvement, and governance initiatives, including interpreting evidence, implementing findings, and supporting service planning.
• Provide professional and operational leadership within the service, including workforce planning, resource management, clinical governance, recruitment, and supervision of clinical competence.
• Support staff wellbeing and participate in Trust-wide initiatives.

About us

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated 'outstanding' by the CQC, we are committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. As an employer, we are committed to offering an inclusive and compassionate environment where our people share in a sense of belonging and are supported to flourish. Our values at Berkshire Healthcare are: Caring for and about you is our top priority; Committed to providing good quality, safe services; Working Together with you to develop innovative solutions; Your wellbeing is important to us.

Some of the benefits of working for us include:

• Flexible working options to support work-life balance
• 27 days' annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell
• Excellent learning and career development opportunities
• 'Cycle to Work' and car leasing scheme including electric vehicles
• Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services
• Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants
• Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities, the environment and armed forces community to support equality
• Generous maternity, paternity, adoption and special leave
• Free parking across Trust sites

Job responsibilities

The must haves for this role:

• Qualified in CBT to postgraduate diploma level with BABCP accreditation and substantial post-qualification experience delivering high-intensity CBT to children and young people with anxiety, depression, and complex presentations.
• Extensive experience in specialist psychological assessment, formulation, and evidence-based intervention within CAMHS, including managing comorbidities, safeguarding, risk, and complex clinical situations.
• Evidence of post-qualification training in clinical supervision, with experience providing supervision, teaching, and mentoring to practitioners, trainees, and multidisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrated expertise in clinical leadership, including coordinating CBT provision across services, contributing to service development, quality improvement, audits, and research initiatives.
• Knowledge of psychological therapies theory and practice, clinical governance, service evaluation, research methodology, and the ability to implement evidence-based service changes.
• Strong skills in communication, consultation, collaboration, and advocacy with service users, families, clinicians, and multi-agency partners, including managing sensitive or highly emotive information; able to work flexibly across sites and maintain professional standards under pressure.

For further information about the role, please see attached job description and person specification. We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted. We are committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in our accreditations: Race Equality Matters Silver Trailblazer, Neurodiversity in Business Corporate Member, Disability Confident Leader, Carer Confident Level 2, and the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award. Reasonable adjustments will be provided to candidates as needed. We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have. Please don’t hesitate to call: Jemma Crocker-Buque on or email who’ll be delighted to help. Please note, if we receive a high number of applications, we may close this role earlier than the advertised closing date, so please submit your application as soon as possible.

Person Specification

Education/Qualifications/Training

• Post graduate Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
• Accreditation with the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP), achieved through training and experience with young people with anxiety and depression.
• Accredited Postgraduate Master’s degree in CBT.
• OR Acceptable evidence of equivalence: Postgraduate certificate-level training relevant to the role (e.g. CBT, research methodology, or supervision).
• OR Recognised clinical supervision from a qualified supervisor, possibly within a specialist area.
• OR Experience in area of specialism, such as: Leading or contributing to research or service improvement projects (e.g. CBT, treatment of depression/anxiety, clinical supervision).
• OR Delivering specialist therapy in CBT-focused assessment and treatment pathways.
• OR Providing teaching and/or training in CBT, depression/anxiety treatment, or supervision.
• OR Offering clinical leadership or management in CBT treatment or supervision practices.
• Candidates without a relevant Postgraduate Master’s qualification must submit a portfolio of evidence demonstrating equivalent competence, referencing frameworks such as the Higher Education Credit Framework for England.
• Evidence of post qualification training in clinical supervision (may be included in portfolio evidence above)
• Evidence of post qualification training in Leadership (may be included in portfolio of evidence above)

Continuous Professional Development

• Continued Professional Development, including relevant post graduate courses/ workshops/ modules, in the area of specialism, covering the following: Assessment/ Formulation/ Specialist Interventions/ Research Methodology, Leadership

Experience

• Demonstrable post qualification experience working as a qualified high intensity CBT therapist with a high level of expertise in area of clinical specialism
• Experience of specialist CBT psychological assessment and treatment of clients within one or more services relevant to the service area
• Extensive experience of working in evidence-based ways with a variety of client groups and presenting problems, including comorbidities that reflect a range of clinical severity while maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
• Experience of providing effective postgraduate teaching, training and clinical supervision within the modality/ area of specialism
• Experience of providing expert clinical leadership within a specialist area of practice
• Experience of coordinating cognitive behavioural therapies provision across CAMHS services, developing and implementing policy based on relevant NHS guidance
• Experience of clinical governance, including quality assurance measures, service development and carrying out clinical audit, evaluative research and applying the findings
• Experience of service evaluation, audit, and implementing change from a national and local health or social care change agenda that impacts across services and professions
• Experience of working with and addressing issues of diversity, including experience of working with diversity, multiculturalism, and equality of access to service

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• High-level knowledge of the theory and practice of one or more recognised psychological therapies relevant to the service.
• Knowledge of effective care pathway navigation across primary and secondary care psychological therapies services
• A high level of expertise in a specialism of practice within the service area, supported by additional education or experience
• Advanced specialist knowledge of the theory and practice of adapting specific psychological therapies in the context of co-morbidity and complexity (e.g. neurodivergent conditions, frailty, etc).
• Understanding of the psychological professions working within the service, the relevant professional bodies and guidelines for practice
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical field of psychological therapies
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups including across agencies.
• Skills in coordination of psychological therapy provision, and in interpretation, development and implementation of policy across a service.
• Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
• Ability to plan and organise a broad range of complex activities, including programmes of care and governance structures that impact across and between service areas
• Ability to maintain intense concentration for prolonged periods, managing individual and group supervision formats.
• Must be capable of handling exposure to traumatic and highly emotional clinical case content
• Well-developed verbal and written communication skills enabling the sensitive communication of complex, technical and/or sensitive information to multiple stakeholders.
• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to support, influence and engage with clinicians, stakeholders and service users to create change and improvement.
• The ability and skills to act as an advocate for service users and the service, to engage and foster good professional relationships with all health professionals in promoting the good integration of this service with the wider health care system.
• Exceptional IT skills and the ability to navigate various systems and software packages (such as RiO, Outlook, databases, MS Office/Teams, One Consultation and the Internet)

Additional Requirements

• Ability to work clinically and effectively with interpreters
• Ability to work flexibly around working patterns as required
• Ability to travel independently between locations in Berkshire to fulfil the requirements and duties of the position

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.