Clinical Psychologist/Counselling Psychologist

Clinical Psychologist / Counselling Psychologist

The closing date is 26 November 2025

We are looking for enthusiastic clinical or counselling psychologists to work within the psychological services of the Brent Community Mental Health Hubs, and Inpatient Wards.

The teams work with clients experiencing complex mental health problems including, complex emotional needs, psychosis, bipolar affective disorder, anxiety disorders, recurrent depression and complex PTSD. The post holder will be expected to provide specialist psychological assessment and effective evidence-based interventions.

We are currently recruiting Band 7 clinical or counselling psychologists for the following Pathway positions:

• Psychosis Pathway (0.5 FTE)
• Complex Emotional Needs (0.5 FTE)

We are interested in candidates with training and experience in models such as CBT, CBTp, FI, DBT, EMDR and ACT. You can apply to work in both pathways or just one. Let us know which pathway you are interested in working in.

The post holder will have a commitment to the recovery model, team working, and service user and carer involvement. Experience of working with diversity in a multicultural setting is vital.

The service offers the opportunity to develop skills in psychosocial interventions for complex difficulties in an MDT setting. The service has good supervision structures and is supportive of continuing professional development.

Main Duties of the Job

The post-holder will work with clients presenting with a range of complex emotional and social difficulties. The Mental Health Hub, Early Intervention Service and inpatient wards, provide care for those clients whose needs cannot be adequately met within a primary care setting.

The post-holder will provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy for clients with complex mental health problems. They will also support the provision of the psychosocial programmes offered within the service. The psychologist will be expected to offer advice, training, and consultation to other members of the team and non-professional carers.

The post-holder will attend weekly team meetings and case discussion forums. They will have an active role in managing referrals and planning clinical care. They will contribute to the ongoing development of effective recovery-oriented treatment models. They will also play an active role in initiatives to ensure optimal use of psychological therapy resources and make them widely accessible and offered in a timely manner. The post-holder will support the team in assessing the psychological and social needs of patients referred to the service.

About Us

Along with the fully established benefits such as Monthly supervision; Annual personal development plans/appraisals; Support and guidance with Revalidation; Hidden Gem and annual award ceremonies. We are also able to offer access to a full range of internal and external training opportunities across our services.

The catchment area of the post is the North London borough of Brent.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

Job Responsibilities

• To offer specialist psychological assessment and intervention to patients attending the service.
• To provide specialist advice, guidance, and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis, and treatment plan.
• To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems.
• To be responsible for implementing psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups.
• To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options, considering both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
• To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.
• To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
• To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of treatment.

Person Specification

Training and Qualifications

• Post-graduate doctoral level training in clinical or counselling psychology or its equivalent as accredited by the BPS, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a Practitioner Clinical or Counselling Psychologist.
• Post-doctoral training in one or more additional specialised areas of psychological practice.
• Interest in taking up DBT diploma training.

Experience

• Assessed experience of working in a CMHT or similar complex care service working with patients with complexity and co-morbidity.
• Relevant experience of exercising clinical responsibility for clients\’ psychological care and treatment, within the context of a multidisciplinary care plan.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or professional and clinical supervision.
• Experience of representing Psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care.
• Experience of assessing and treating clients across the full range of care settings.
• Experience of supervising other mental health staff.

Knowledge and Skills

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, highly technical, and clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Post-Qualification practice of CBT or other evidence-based psychological therapies.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and nonprofessional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, as practiced within the field of clinical psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation and policy in relation to the client group and mental health.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as recommended by the BPS.
• Well-developed knowledge of the theory and practice of specialized psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of highly specialized psychological therapies and assessment methodologies.
• Post-qualification training and accreditation in CBT or other evidence-based psychological therapies.

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.

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust