Principal Clinical psychologist / Counselling Psychologist

Go back Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Principal Clinical psychologist / Counselling Psychologist

The closing date is 19 January 2026

We are looking for a psychological practitioner who is passionate about developing Learning Disability Services to best meet the needs of service users and carers. The successful candidate will bring enthusiasm and commitment to support the development of the Community Learning Disability service, working with colleagues towards a vision of all contact with service users being psychologically trauma informed.

This is an exciting, newly-developed post based on a restructure of psychology provision within the service. The post is offered as a 12 month fixed term/secondment opportunity initially to ascertain if the post is a successful part of the restructure. The successful candidate will work across the Assessment Referral Team (ART) and the Intensive Support Team (IST) providing input and support to the MDT. In ART the role will include supporting MDT decision making, facilitating LD clinical opinion and diagnosis when required and offering consultation to support external services involved with individuals. In IST you will hold a small caseload acting as a PBS specialist within the team, developing formulations and planning and leading on staff training.

The successful candidate must be a driver with access to a vehicle for community visits.

Main duties of the job

The successful candidate will work in partnership with existing psychology team members to lead on the development of psychology provision across the Community Learning Disability Service. There will also be opportunity to review how this interfaces with other parts of the learning disability service and mainstream provision. We are looking for someone who has considerable experience of working with clients with learning disability within a multi disciplinary team context and who has experience of service development and/or quality improvement work. The successful candidate will work with other psychologists, operational colleagues and Multi Disciplinary Teams to refine and deliver on the vision as it applies to users and carers of the community teams.

The postholder will be involved in the development of more junior Psychologists and multi disciplinary colleagues, supporting them via supervision and other inputs to provide outstanding psychology support and to develop as reflective and reflexive practitioners. Skills and knowledge in providing supervision on psychological approaches to complex trauma presentations in individuals and within systems will be particularly valuable, as will experience in working with people from diverse cultural/religious backgrounds.

This role will involve work with both service users and their systems. There will be opportunities for teaching and training of staff within the LD service and in other agencies/settings.

About us

The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT) is the main provider of Mental Health and Learning Disability services in Leeds. We also provide specialist inpatient services in York and some highly specialised services across the country. As a teaching trust with strong links to local universities, we are a centre of excellence for teaching, research and development.

There are many benefits of working for LYPFT including fantastic employee wellbeing support, days annual leave, flexible working and remote working arrangements, the NHS Pension Scheme, coaching, support and opportunities for career development and training and education support alongside a range of exclusive discounts and payment schemes including for cars, extra leave days and more NHS Discount Offers.

We also have a bank department, offering a variety of roles in nursing, allied health professions, healthcare support worker and administration clerical. Permanent employees are automatically added to bank.

Applicants should be aware that individuals requiring a visa to work in the UK, the Trust only provides sponsorship for registered healthcare practitioner roles (this does not include Healthcare Support Workers). This is an essential requirement, and the Trust is unable to offer you a role if you do not meet Trust requirements for sponsorship and Home Office requirements for a visa.

Job responsibilities

We are looking for an enthusiastic, reliable and adaptable individual who can demonstrate a passion for team working, service development and quality improvement. Previous experience of working with adults with a learning disability is essential.

The successful candidate will ideally have a good knowledge of positive behaviour support in practice and approaches to risk assessment & management. They will also have experience of integrating a trauma informed approach into their practice.

The service runs Monday to Friday 9 to 5. All team members have access to full remote technology (phones and laptops) to support agile ways of working. However, there is an expectation that individuals are present in person for MDTs and other team related activity as the service requires. LD services are committed to safely and effectively meeting the needs of our service users and their carers.

In addition to substantial duties linked to service improvement and ensuring safe & effective governance of community psychology provision, the successful candidate will provide a qualified clinical service to clients across the Community Learning Disability Service. This will involve providing highly specialist psychological assessment and intervention as required at the same time as offering advice and consultation on clients psychological care to non psychologist colleagues and to other, non professional carers, working autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the teams policies and procedures. This specialist input will be particularly into clinical pathways for i) behaviours that challenge & ii) risk and vulnerability. The postholder will be expected to utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

Person Specification Qualifications

• Doctoral level training in Clinical or Counselling Psychology (or equivalent prior to 1996) and HCPC registration

Experience

• Additional significant post qualification training relevant to the service and job role outlined in the job summary
• Formal training in supervision of others
• Significant post qualification experience in an area of practice relevant to the service specified in the job summery to include assessment of risk i.e. working in LD services

Skills

• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non professional groups

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.

Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust