Band 8a Adult Mental Health Specialist - BristolNHS

Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust

Hartcliffe, Bristol, BS13 0BE Fixed-Term £57,528 to £64,750

Posted 18 September 2026 Closing date 1 October 2026

Parson Street Rail Station (2.0 miles, direct) Bitton (Avon Valley Railway) (5.5 miles, direct) Public Transport Interchange (5.0 miles, direct)

Job summary

The role is based in the Neighbourhood Teams (Family Help/Social Work) and is uniquely positioned to provide specialist adult mental health consultation, direct work and training in a multidisciplinary team including: Family Help Keyworkers, Primary Mental Health Specialists from CAMHS, Independent Domestic Violence Advocates (IDVAs) Employment Advisers from DWP and Social Workers in Bristol City Council's Children's Services.

As an Adult Mental Health Specialist in this team, you will have excellent communication and therapeutic skills. You will facilitate and provide assessment services on the psychological/ emotional health of adults. You will lead and participate in multi-agency meetings and consultations with professionals. You will engage in some direct therapeutic work with adults and will contribute to presentations and training events for other professionals and carers / parents as required. As part of the team, you will be well-supported within the Bristol service to provide this work with regular managerial and clinical supervision and clinical team/CPI meetings.

Key features of this role:

The development of emotional and mental health outreach services and systemic practice for adults and their families in Bristol's national Supporting Families Programme.
To have a highly specialist lead role for adult mental health, supporting the development of wellbeing of parents/carers and forming links with adult mental health services.

Main duties of the job

o To provide highly specialist psychological assessment and therapy to patients and carers as appropriate to the service.

o To provide highly specialist advice and consultation on clients' formulation and psychological management to other non-psychologist colleagues.

o To use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to the more effective management of patients by the various teams in the area and where appropriate outside of the area.

o To clinically supervise/line manage trainee clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists, CAPs and less experienced psychology staff, and other professionals.

o To contribute to audit, research, policy and service development within the areas served by the Family help/ Social care Service.

o To develop and deliver training for multidisciplinary staff.

Job description

CLINICAL

To provide a high quality and largely autonomous and systematic service including consultancy, training and casework to a specified Family Help/Social Care Team, including one to one casework supervision, advice and support.
To undertake highly specialist assessments, risk assessment and assessment for suitability for specialist psychological therapies with clients and their carers (as appropriate to the role).
To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
To be responsible for providing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers and groups, within and across teams employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
To provide at least one specialist evidence based psychological intervention as dictated by the needs of the service.
To provide highly specialist consultation to members of the various teams in the area and beyond regarding formulation and psychological management of clients of those teams.
To use highly specialist psychological knowledge and skills to contribute to the more effective management of patients by teams.
To be involved in the development and delivery of training within the Trust.
To participate in clinical and caseload supervision arrangements provided by the Service.
To maintain accurate records and to monitor clinical workload using agreed systems.
To participate in generic team duties as agreed by the Family help team Manager and AWP CPI Supervisor, as appropriate to the needs of the service.
To enter data as requested by the Trust in a timely manner.

MANAGEMENT

Delegated caseload supervision.
Represent the service at specialist meetings as requested.
The co-ordination of small scale projects as requested.

PROFESSIONAL

To fully observe the BPS (1996) Code of Conduct and the DCP Guidelines for the Professional Practice of Clinical Psychology (1995), or the equivalent for the professional body you are registered with To be HCPC registered, or registered with other equivalent regulatory body.
To be aware of, adhere to, and where appropriate, contribute to the formulation and review of Trust, Area, Clinical Psychology and Bristol City Council policies and procedures. Copies of Trust Policies can be accessed via the staff intranet or from your manager.
To participate in local psychological therapy and psychology meetings and trust wide meetings as appropriate.
To maintain and develop high standards of psychological therapy practice by engaging in continuing professional development and co-operative working/networking with other psychological therapists.
To participate in an annual performance appraisal.
To participate in clinical supervision.

SERVICE GOVERNANCE

To participate in service governance processes in the profession and in Bristol City Council to maintain a safe, effective service which responds to Service User feedback.
To support and participate in multidisciplinary clinical audit.
To liaise with other disciplines and agencies to ensure that best practice is shared.
To promote the use of effective interventions in the service.

TRAINING AND STAFF DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT

To provide supervision for clinical psychology trainees, or other trainees from regional training courses and elsewhere as appropriate.
To provide training, supervision and consultation in psychological approaches to other staff in the Service Co-ordinator Team. This is to include support with client engagement, joint assessment, formulation of psychological problems and planning of interventions to be implemented by Service Co-ordinators.
To contribute to the development of a psychologically based framework of understanding and care across service settings through providing teaching, training, consultation and supervision.
To participate in peer supervision arrangements for psychological therapists in the area.
To collaborate with colleagues to develop and offer training courses, workshops and supervision groups to develop psychological skills for staff in the area.
To contribute to the teaching of students and trainees in psychology, medicine, nursing and other health care disciplines.
To agree a plan of personal development with the line manager and professional lead for the service.
Provide inclusive, compassionate and effective adult mental health leadership for your team by setting clear vision and direction.
Develop a culture and environment in which members of staff are encouraged and supported to deliver high- quality services and are supported to innovate and improve services where appropriate.
Encourage your team to feel able to raise concerns openly and safely.
Promote equality of opportunity in service delivery and employment, ensuring that no person receives less favourable treatment than another on the grounds of gender, marital status, race, religion, creed, colour nationality ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation or disability.
Consider the individual needs of team members for a healthy work-life balance and think about how their needs can be supported by providing flexible ways of working.

About us

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 2,200miles, to more than 1.8million 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.

Apply / view full listing →