Band 8d Divisional Head of Psychological Therapies

AWP is looking for an experienced and enthusiastic Clinical Psychologist, Counselling Psychologist or fully accredited Psychotherapist to join us in the role of Divisional Head of Psychological Therapies in the BNSSG Senior Leadership Team. The post is for 22.5 hours per week 0.6 WTE.

The post holder will play a key role in achieving our four strategic aims to provide outstanding care, to be a great place to work, to provide sustainable services and to deliver in partnership.

This is a pivotal senior leadership role within AWP, offering an experienced psychological professional the opportunity to actively shape the future direction and delivery of psychological and therapy services both within the Trust and across the BNSSG system.

As a key member of the Division's Senior Leadership Team, the postholder will be responsible for the strategic development, leadership and embedding of high-quality, evidence-based psychological and psychologically informed interventions across community and inpatient settings. The role will actively contribute to, and support, ambitious and complex transformation programmes, ensuring that psychological therapies are central to system-wide service redesign and improvement.

The postholder will provide expert leadership on key theoretical frameworks, service challenges and practice-related issues, constructively challenging existing models where required and driving innovation to address complex and longstanding problems. You will seek creative, pragmatic solutions to barriers to access and delivery, promoting consistently high-quality, safe and responsive care across the Division.

This role requires a high level of credibility and influence, with exceptional communication skills across written, verbal and presentation formats. The successful candidate will be highly motivated, values-driven and committed to continuous improvement, with a clear focus on improving outcomes and experience for people who use services.

We are the lead provider of healthcare for people with serious mental illness, learning disabilities and autism across Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES), Swindon and Wiltshire, and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire.

We aim to provide High Quality, Compassionate Care everywhere, every day. This means our services will be safe, clinically effective and provide a positive all round experience for our patients, families and carers. And we believe passionately in treating everyone with kindness, respect and empathy.

Key to this is providing a supportive and safe environment for our 4,000 staff where we all feel welcome and able to do the best we can for those we support. Our staff and teams work incredibly hard delivering services across more than 90 locations, covering 2,200 miles, to more than 1.8 million people.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.

A key focus of the role will be leading the scoping and co-ordination of NICE-recommended psychological therapies for people with serious mental illness and complex mental health needs across the BNSSG footprint. Working in close partnership with senior leaders in the third sector, IAPT services and wider system partners, you will support the development of a more standardised, equitable and sustainable model of provision, including the expansion of supervision and training capacity.

The postholder will also lead on the co-ordination of NHSE-funded psychological therapy training programmes across BNSSG, including demand scoping, allocation of training places and alignment with strategic workforce priorities.

To lead the scoping of the provision of NICE recommended psychological therapies and psychologically informed interventions across the BNSSG division (community and inpatient) for people with serious mental health problems.

To work with partners in the VCSE sector and local IAPT services to develop a model to improve access to evidence based psychological interventions/ therapies for people with serious mental illness and complex mental health needs across…