Principal Clinical/Counselling Psychologist | Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust
| Posting date: | 25 November 2025 |
|---|---|
| Salary: | Not specified |
| Additional salary information: | £64,455 - £74,896 per annum |
| Hours: | Full time |
| Closing date: | 25 December 2025 |
| Location: | Reading, RG31 4UH |
| Company: | Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust |
| Job type: | Permanent |
| Job reference: | 7641911/371-TAP-CFS608 |
Summary
Are you an experienced Clinical/Counselling Psychologist looking for the next step into a Principal role?
Are you looking to work within an innovative service that works with families to support both emotional and mental wellbeing?
An exciting opportunity has arisen within the Family Safeguarding Service for a PrincipalClinical/Counselling Psychologist to join our team.
This service is a collaboration between health services and local authority Children’s Social Care services offering a multiagency initiative allowing us to provide a ‘whole family’ approach to safeguarding children and improve parental mental health.
Wesupports adults, who are experiencing difficulties to meet the needs of their children and fulfil requirements of child protection plans.Improving parental mental health, improves family functioning and the outcomes for children, and contributes to the service aims of keeping families together.
Flexible working is available, with a combination of home visits, on-site appointments and remote working.
• Work as an integral member of a multi-disciplinary team, which includes children’s social workers, domestic abuse and substance misuse specialists, as well as mental health practitioners and clinical psychologists, to reduce risks to children.
• Address the impact on children where parents have mental health difficulties and limited coping strategies, as well as problems arising from domestic abuse, and parental alcohol and substance misuse. This approach engages and empowers parents to make the changes required for better family functioning, more specifically to address parental mental health and improve emotional wellbeing and resilience.
• You will be required to provide evidence-based opinion regarding parental mental health and share this with the MDT through review meetings such as Child in Need reviews and Child Protection Case Conferences.
• Deliver specialist clinical work, and support other clinical staff, to engage clients in assessment and formulation based on relevant theory and research. They will provide evidence-based psychological interventions to improve parental mental health and improve outcomes for the most vulnerable children and their families.
• Our interventions are underpinned by Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and Systemic Family Therapy models. Emotional ‘first aid’ skills are key to supporting our clients through periods of crisis, whilst motivational interviewing supports in eliciting and maintaining their engagement
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated ‘outstanding’ by the CQC, we’re committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. As an employer, we’re 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
• Generous NHS pension scheme
• 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
The “must haves” for this role:
• Post graduate doctorate in clinical or counselling psychology
• HCPC registration or equivalent
• Experience working across multiple agencies and services
• Previous team management
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’re 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 contact: Poppy LawPoppy.Law@berkshire.nhs.uk or Jo Hadfieldjo.hadfield@berkshire.nhs.ukwho’ll be delighted to help or to arrange a call to discuss further.
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.
We have identified that this is a role where we have underrepresentation of ethnically diverse colleagues. As part of our commitment to inclusion and Unity Against Racism we offer guaranteed interviews to candidates who meet the essential criteria and identify as: Asian or Asian British, Black or Black British, Mixed and ‘Other’ Ethnic Groups.
This advert closes on Monday 22 Dec 2025
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Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.