Clinical Psychologist – Derbyshire

Role: Clinical Psychologist

Salary: Up to £60,368.00 (according to experience)

Location: Cromford, Derbyshire

Contract/Hours: Full time – 37 hours a week or flexibility or Part-Time 4 days a week.

Benefits:

• 29 days annual leave PLUS bank holidays, with up to 5 additional days for continuous service and option to buy or sell leave.
• Opportunities to shape service development
• Flexible maternity, adoption, and paternity packages
• Pension with up to 7% employer contribution with included life assurance cover
• Staff discount portal and Blue Light Card eligibility with 15,000 national retailers discounts.

Why Action for Children?

We are one of the largest children’s charities in the UK and have been making a difference to the lives of the UK’s vulnerable children for over 150 years.

Find out more about Action for Children here: Action for Children and on X, LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube to get to know us better.

The difference is what you do. You can learn more about why we do it, by checking out our ‘Driven by Love’ video.

A bit about the service:

Action for Children’s Therapeutic Service (The DECC), commissioned by Derby City Council and Derby and Derbyshire ICB, is dedicated to improving the emotional wellbeing and resilience of children in care and care leavers. The DECC delivers a systemic, trauma- and attachment-informed approach, offering a range of psychological interventions including direct therapy, consultation, group work, training, and the development of self-help resources. The service is delivered by a stable, specialist multidisciplinary team based in Cromford with a satellite site in Derby City.

The service has expanded to include a range of innovative provisions such as Staying Close support, Harmful Sexualised Behaviour interventions, and bespoke support for young people with complex needs.

Alongside local provision, Action for Children is developing a wider internal Therapeutic Service to support its residential homes and services nationally, as well as offering externally commissioned work. This is an exciting period of growth, innovation, and service development.

A bit about the role

This is an exciting opportunity to join our highly skilled multi-disciplinary team of Psychologists, Therapists, and Therapeutic Social Workers. In this role you will report to the Lead Psychologist, to develop, and deliver, a specialist trauma and attachment service for Children in Care and Care Leavers, whilst working closely with our team Practice Managers to provide clinical oversight and supervision to our Therapeutic Practitioners. In addition to casework, training, and one-off consultations, the role will involve supporting the development of therapeutic input to Action for Children’s homes, working alongside our Therapeutic Practitioners to provide formulation, training, whole team reflective practice and consultation to embed an approach to therapeutic care based on principles of PACE and trauma informed care.

We are also developing our links with Adoption East Midlands, where there is opportunity to contribute to “MDT- Reflect”, a multi-agency reflection group which brings together MDT colleagues together with Virtual School, and Educational Psychology services to discuss complex cases through a systemic lens; as well as offering 1:1 and joint virtual consultations alongside MDT colleagues.

This role would suit someone who is passionate about trauma-informed practice, enthusiastic about creative service development, and keen to help shape our long‑term model of psychological and multidisciplinary support for children in care, care leavers and adoptive families.

We are ideally looking for a candidate with extensive experience of working within the field of trauma and attachment, however we also appreciate the value of transferable skills and knowledge from other applicable fields within Clinical Psychology, particularly work with individuals who have a learning disability and/or are neurodivergent.

You will have access to external training in models such as Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), Theraplay® and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and will support the team in the delivery of their targets around case work, training, reflective practice, and consultation.

 How you’ll help to create brighter futures

• Providing clinical supervision and oversight to a highly skilled multi-disciplinary team
• Supporting the assessment, formulation, and intervention of complex case work, including delivery of highly specialist psychological assessments and co-delivery of trauma and attachment interventions to children, young people, carers and those in the professional network
• Developing, piloting and co-facilitating training/ group work / reflective practice sessions to professional teams
• Leading on aspects of service delivery
• Supporting AFC’s growth strategy around mental health/ residential services and trauma informed psychological practice.
• Contributing to audit and evaluation.

Let’s talk about you.

• Doctorate or equivalent in Clinical Psychology
• Registered as a qualified practitioner Clinical Psychologist by the HCPC
• Experience of delivering highly specialist risk and psychological assessments
• Experience of working therapeutically with children, young people and families including delivering interventions targeted at addressing complex trauma and attachment insecurity.
• Experience of supervising
• Excellent communication skills, both written and spoken
• Experience of delivering workshops/training/group-work/reflective practice
• Travel will be required as part of the role.

Good to know. 

Please note we are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.

Application Process 

There are five sections to complete: Personal Details, CV, Supporting Statement & Information, Equality & Diversity, Submission & Declaration.

Contact: Sarah Manderfield at recruitmentservice@actionforchildren.org.uk quoting reference number 13266

Diversity, equality, and inclusion

At Action for Children, we’re dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. We actively encourage applications from Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic, and disabled candidates as they are under-represented within Action for Children. We want to take deliberate and purposeful action to ensure equal opportunity to all groups in society and for the Action for Children family.

Male staff are under-represented within our Children Service roles. We would like to encourage more male applicants for our Children Service roles.

Job Description

See below for further information about working with us:

Action for Children Employee Benefits

AfC Commitment Statement