Job summary
- Main area
- Psychology
- Grade
- Band 5
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 350-SC8081175
- Employer
- Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Rodney Street
- Town
- Liverpool
- Salary
- £32,073 - £39,043 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 06/07/2026 23:59
- Interview date
- 22/07/2026
Employer heading
Assistant Psychologist
Band 5
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Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust celebrates diversity and promotes equal opportunities; we are committed to challenging and eliminating racism and other forms of discrimination and advancing and promoting equality of opportunity in the provision of services and creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.
We take positive action to support disadvantaged groups and also particularly encourage applications from ethnically diverse, disabled and LGBTQIA+ people that are under-represented in our workforce. Furthermore we welcome applications from reservists and ex-armed forces personnel as we recognise the benefits of the values, skills, training and experience that they bring to their work with us. We encourage all applicants to share their equality information with us.
Using AI to support your application
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a helpful tool when preparing your application, supporting you to organise and structure your application and present your experiences clearly. However, we want to hear about your experiences and achievements. Please ensure everything you submit is truthful, accurate, and reflects your own work and experience. Your authentic story is the best way to help us understand who you are and what you can bring to the role. If content appears to be copied or misrepresented, it may impact the outcome of your application. We encourage you to use AI responsibly as a support tool, not a substitute for your own voice.
For tips and guidance, please refer to our applicant guidance.
Your experiences matter, let them shine.
Applications that appear mostly or fully generated by AI, without clear personal examples linked to the person specification, may be rejected.
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Job overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen within Mersey Care to work as an Assistant Psychologist for the Mental Health Treatment Requirement across Merseyside. This service provides the assessments and psychological interventions with people who have been given Mental Health Treatment Requirements.
There are currently 3 vacancies - to work across Liverpool & Sefton Probation Offices.
The service covers Merseyside and Cheshire, working across the courts and probation services in these regions. You will spend your mornings at court assessing individuals for their suitability for an MHTR. You will also work across their local National Probation services, where you will provide short term psychological intervention. As such, travel is apart of this role.
You will be part of a wider team with regular supervision, joint working, CPD, and reflective practice.
Main duties of the job
The role will be to provide short-term psychological interventions for a range of psychological difficulties and experiences, including low mood and anxiety, anger, loss, trauma, interpersonal problems and learning difficulties. There will also be the opportunity to utilise research skills for audit, policy and service development and research within the area served by the team/service.
The post holder will be expected to work in a range of settings.
Working for our organisation
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details and requirements of the role.
Person specification
Qualifications
Essential criteria
- A Degree in psychology.
- Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society
Desirable criteria
- Further post graduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of working with people with mental health problems and/or other disabilities as an assistant psychologist or PWP worker.
- Experience of using psychological assessments, formulations, interventions, risk.
- Experience of working with people who have to potential to become aggressive and being able to respond appropriately
- Experience of MDT working and the voluntary sector.
Desirable criteria
- Experience of working with offenders
Knowledge
Essential criteria
- An understanding of trauma.
- An understanding of the Criminal Justice System
- An ability to apply. psychological knowledge to the context of people’s lives.
Skills
Essential criteria
- High level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive.
- Has training and experience of audit, evaluation and research
- An ability to interact with a diverse range of people with complex presentations
- Ability to work with individuals with a history of violence and/or sexual offending
- Ability to work within a multidisciplinary team as well as independently reliably and consistently with work agreed and managed at regular intervals.
- An ability to work as part of a team and maintain good relationships with colleagues
- Ability to accept and use supervision appropriately and effectively.
- Ability to cope with and maintain professional boundaries
- Align to Trust policies and Procedures
- Ability to meet the travel requirements for the post.
- Manage own personal safety being mindful of the potential risk of others including and managing the situation appropriately
Desirable criteria
- Experience using computers for databases or data-analysis, especially SPSS for Windows
- An interest in working with offenders
- A desire to explore a career in Professional Psychology
Values
Essential criteria
- Continuous improvement – committed to making improvements to our services for the benefit of all.
- Accountability – taking ownership to anticipate, develop and deliver high quality care.
- Respect – how we treat others in an inclusive and supportive way.
- Enthusiasm – demonstrate our passion and pride for what we do and how we do it.
- Support – actively supporting others with compassion and courage.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Dr Mark Walton
- Job title
- Consultant Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
- Telephone number
- 0151 330 6430
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