Perinatal and Parent-Infant Outreach Psychotherapist

Perinatal and Parent-Infant Outreach Psychotherapist

NHS AfC: Band 7

Main area Perinatal Community Team Grade NHS AfC: Band 7 Contract Permanent Hours Part time - 15 hours per week Job ref 294-MHCA-8380878-EB

Site Springfield University Hospital Town London Salary £58,133 - £65,261 per annum Inclusive of Inner London HCAs Salary period Yearly Closing 03/11/2026 23:59 Interview date 18/11/2026

South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust has a rich history, well-established community links and an international reputation. We provide a full range of local mental health services to the Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Wandsworth London boroughs, as well as specialist forensic mental health services, including specialised services such as national deaf adults and CAMHS inpatients and OCD.

We are committed to providing high quality integrated health and social care for local people with mental health problems in South West London and more specialist mental health services for people throughout the UK. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ however we aim to be ‘outstanding’.

Our Values

We take pride in providing specialist care to our service users where our Trust values; being consistent, compassionate, collaborative, respectful and open is at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is "making life better together".

When you join us, you’ll be part of something special – an innovative and rapidly growing organisation that is helping to redefine the Mental Health, education and social care landscape in the UK.

As a Trust, we are happy to talk flexible working.

Job overview

We are seeking an enthusiastic Perinatal Parent Infant Therapist/Adult Psychotherapist/Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist with a passion for perinatal care and infant mental health to join our specialist community perinatal mental health service and support our parent – infant pathway. We are dedicated to high quality, evidence-based practice. We welcome applications from all psychotherapy and psychological professions and those newly qualified with the necessary perinatal/parent-infant experience.

The post holder will have a proven interest in working with parents and infants and knowledge of infant and adult mental health. Training as a parent – infant therapist (including extended parent – infant observation) is desirable but not essential. Appropriate specialist clinical and professional supervision and opportunities for training and development will be made available.

They will be a key member of our parent-infant psychotherapy sub-team and join an experienced and friendly group of psychological therapists and psychotherapists who provide a range of highly specialist psychological interventions for service users under the care of the Perinatal Mental Health Team. A key aspect of this role is to provide highly specialist psychological care to parents (and their infants) experiencing moderate to severe mental health difficulties. An ability to assess and manage risk in this context is crucial.

Main duties of the job

Main duties of the role:

• To provide specialist psychotherapeutic assessments and interventions to service users and their infants of the Perinatal mental health service.
• To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for managing an identified caseload of parents and infants with complex psychological problems, including assessment of risk and safeguarding adults and babies
• To enable staff and service users from all backgrounds to flourish by working together to create a psychologically safe and responsive environment, ensuring the team operates from an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory perspective at all times
• To provide consultation as appropriate to other members of the MDT and wider professional networks involved in a family’s care.
• To undertake service evaluation, research and policy development
• To work collaboratively and flexibly as a member of the multi-disciplinary team and contribute to a psychologically informed framework of working across the service.
• To actively contribute to perinatal care plans, providing a psychological perspective, which may require attendance at pre-birth and post-birth planning meetings

Working for our organisation

We are Proud to Belong at South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust.

We have expert services, a rich history and a clear commitment to providing the best quality care for those with mental ill-health. The Care Quality Commission already rates our services as ‘good’ - we aspire to ‘outstanding’.

This is a great time to join us. We are transforming the way we care for our communities to support our mission of Making Life Better Together. We have built two brand new mental health facilities at Springfield University Hospital, which are amongst the best in the world. More developments are planned across our sites and services.

We are inclusive and diverse and strive to be actively anti racist.

We want to attract people from all backgrounds and experiences to enrich the work we do together.

We are proud to co-produce and involve our local communities in all that we do.

We offer flexible working, career development and a variety ofbenefits to enable a positive, welcoming environment in which our people and their careers can thrive.

Springfield University Hospital, Tooting

Unless expressly stated in the job advert the role is not subject to sponsorship, please be advised that all offers of employment are subject to evidence of right to work in the UK.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To provide specialist psychotherapeutic assessments of parent infant dyads in the perinatal mental health service based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with clients, family members and others involved in the client’s care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychotherapeutic treatment and/or management of difficulties within the parent-infant relationship, 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.

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychotherapeutic interventions for parent infant relationship difficulties within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychotherapeutic formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.

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.

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychotherapeutic care plans.

To provide specialist psychotherapeutic advice, guidance, consultation and training to other professionals contributing directly to the formulation and treatment plan for difficulties in the parent infant relationship.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all service users under the care of the team.

To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and their babies and to provide advice to other professions on psychotherapeutic aspects of risk assessment and risk management. To utilise specific experience of assessing risk to the unborn child as well as to the infant and to make decisions based on care needs which are most supportive of mother and child.

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 both uni and multi-disciplinary care, integrating the contribution of other professionals on the basis of client need.

To work jointly with psychologists & psychotherapists based in community teams, to plan and hand over the psychotherapy assessment and treatment of patients that may continue after discharge from the Perinatal Team.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in job applications

If you have used AI to support the preparation of your application, please briefly indicate how it was used within your supporting statement or application form.

Please remember, your application is your opportunity to tell us about your skills, experience and motivation for the role. We encourage applicants to complete their application and supporting statement in their own words wherever possible. We recognise that AI tools can be helpful in supporting accessibility, and for improving spelling, grammar and structure.

Applications that rely heavily on AI-generated content can become generic and fail to accurately reflect an applicant's individual experience. Applications that clearly demonstrate your own voice, reflections and experiences are often the most effective and help us better understand your suitability for the role.

Please be aware that information provided in your application and supporting statement may be explored further during the selection process. It is important that all applications accurately represent your own knowledge, skills and experience.

Training and Qualifications

• Full/Completed training in Adult Psychodynamic or Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy or Child Psychotherapy or Systemic Family Therapy OR
• Doctoral level training or equivalent in Clinical or Counselling Psychology
• Professional registration with -HCPC (Clinical or Counselling Psychologist) or - UKCP (under the Council for Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis section) or - BPC (Jungian Analyst; Psychoanalyst; Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist) or - ACP (Child Psychotherapist) - UKCP (Systemic Family Therapist via the College of Family & Systemic Psychotherapists)
• Experience of parent-infant observation as part of training and / or clinical work to date
• Further training / qualifications in Perinatal Mental Health
• Successful completion of Parent- Infant Psychotherapy Training (including completion of an infant observation and personal psychotherapy / psychoanalysis)
• Post qualification training in applied research methods, staff training & other methods of applied psychotherapeutic work
• Full accreditation in video interventions such as VIG and VIPP
• Training in Circle of Security Parenting and / or other group protocols focused on supporting parent-infant attachment

Experience

• Experience of formulating difficulties within the parent-infant relationship across a variety of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in-patient settings.
• Experience of drawing upon attachment models and parent-infant relational models
• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of parent infant dyads with severe and complex relational difficulties
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course with presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
• Experience of working with people in the perinatal period who experience severe, complex and long-term mental health problems
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision
• Experience of working in different cultural contexts
• Experience of working as part of a multidisciplinary team
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework
• Evidence of teaching about parent-infant theory and psychopathology
• Experience of raising and managing safeguarding concerns
• Experience of supervising clinical work within the multidisciplinary team

Knowledge & Skills

• Skills in the use of complex methods of parent -infant assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
• Knowledge of NICE guidelines related to infant mental health and evidence of working in line with NICE recommendations
• Well-developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. dual diagnosis, people experiencing psychosis, with personality disorder, substance misuse, learning disability, neurological dysfunction and additional disabilities)

At South West London St Georges Mental Health Trust we are committed to providing services which embrace diversity and that promote equality of opportunity.

We are a Disability Committed Employer, and welcome applications from all sections of the community and people of all protected characteristics.

We are Members of Stonewall Diversity Champions and Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion.

As part of the Trust's commitment to Equalities and Diversity, the Trust supports the establishment of Staff Networks groups to promote diversity in the workplace:

• BME (Evolve) Staff Network
• DiverseAbility
• Mental Health Staff Forum
• Women's Staff Network
• LGBTQIA+

We are committed to supporting the Armed Forces Community and has signed the Armed Forces Covenant.

We provide reasonable adjustments to the interview process for any candidates with a disability.

Please note:

• That the closing date listed is a guide only and that the vacancy may close earlier should sufficient number of applicants have been received
• That once you have submitted your application you agree to your application being transferred to a 3 rd party e-recruitment system
• That should you not have heard from us within three weeks from the closing date your application has not successful
• That priority consideration for applications may be given to at-risk NHS employees
• That should you be successful and appointed, you authorise South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust to confirm your previous NHS service via an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) process
• That your employment is offered subject to successful completion of a Probationary Period depending on your Band (except medical roles)
• That we are a smoke-free Trust

South West London and St George’s Mental Health NHS Trust does not charge any fees

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