West Northamptonshire Council - Specialist Senior Educational Psychologist

About the role
West Northamptonshire Educational Psychology Service are pleased to offer an exciting opportunity to join our team as a specialist senior educational psychologist.  We are seeking to recruit an experienced, enthusiastic and innovative educational psychologist to join our dedicated, supportive and dynamic service.

West Northamptonshire is a relatively new unitary council within which the EP Service is well regarded and supported. The service has a strong focus on values-based practice and supporting staff wellbeing. We are committed to ensuring the highest quality service to support positive outcomes for children and young people across West Northamptonshire. Within the service we promote an ethos of distributed leadership, helping shape the direction of our EP service to be the best it can be. 

The service will provide you with a comprehensive induction and CPD programme and regular professional supervision.

We have extensive links with training universities, with members of our EP team employed as tutors on EP training courses, along with links to local universities.

If you would like an informal discussion about the role, and the new directions which the Service is taking, please email:
Kathryn Davidson,  Principal Educational Psychologist kathryn.davidson@westnorthants.gov.uk 
Gavin Morgan, Senior Educational Psychologist Gavin Morgan Gavin.Morgan@westnorthants.gov.uk or 
Sarah Luxford, Senior Educational Psychologist Sarah Luxford Sarah.Luxford@westnorthants.gov.uk

What will you be doing?
As a specialist senior EP you will play a key role in keeping the service up-to-date with current evidence and information in the area of specialism. This will involve delivering training to the service, providing support for colleagues and overseeing strategic work to embed best practice across the authority.

Early intervention is identified as a priority area for the Local Authority. As the Specialist Senior EP for Early Intervention you would oversee, develop and extend current initiatives already in place (e.g. the Baby Room Project which aims to raise the quality of babies’ experiences by strengthening relationships,  our TAMHS* training empowering settings to enhance mental health, and the universal offer of groupwork facilitation and training run by our skilled team of Assistant EPs ) while also responding to identified service priorities to implement and maintain new initiatives (e.g. establishing an offer to schools to support relational approaches). The role would focus on early intervention across the age ranges and seek to extend EP initiatives/support to other colleagues/ projects within the local area.

West Northamptonshire EP Service protects time for early intervention work and all EPs have a balance of statutory and commissioned work. Each EP has a patch of schools as well as opportunities to engage with a number of other projects (e.g. MeLSA, SENCO Supervision, ELSA, TAMHS training, Autism Education Trust training). The specialist senior EP role includes opportunities to maintain links with schools and support the full range of initiatives, protecting 0.4 FTE for specialist senior EP duties and 0.6 FTE for direct work.

The role includes exciting opportunities to lead and develop strategic initiatives across the county, supported by an established leadership team.

*TAMHS – Targeted Mental Health in Schools

About you
We look forward to hearing from applicants who have:

• A passion for applying psychology to make a meaningful difference and improve the life chances of others, and particularly those from vulnerable and/or marginalised groups
• A commitment to innovative and creative practice, seeking ways to ensure children and young people in West Northamptonshire achieve their best outcomes
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Skills in working collaboratively with different professionals
• Experience working as a qualified educational psychologist within a local authority

Applicants will need to be professionally qualified and registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Benefits
We offer a wide range of benefits to our employees, including:

• Competitive salary. The post is paid on West Northants pay scales which are guaranteed to be the same as or better than Soulbury terms and conditions. The post is paid on Scale B (Senior EP Scale) points 2 – 5 plus up to 3 SPA points (maximum salary point 8) - £58,050 - £67,068
• Ongoing training and development opportunities
• 28 days annual leave per year (pro rata for part time employees), plus bank holidays, increasing to 33 after 5 years’ continuous service
• The option to buy additional annual leave
• Payment of professional registration fees
• Local Government Pension Scheme plus immediate life cover (3 times your annual salary from day one) and ill-health protection
• IT equipment and support provided
• Dedicated administrative support
• Working in a supportive team where ideas are shared and opinions valued, you will receive regular informal and formal supervision
• Employee discounts with local and national retailers, days out, finance, health and beauty, travel and eating out plus lots more
• Car lease scheme
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme - our free Employee Assistant Programme is available for you and your immediate family members 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year and includes telephone counselling, legal advice, bereavement support and medical information

West Northamptonshire pay on a locally agreed salary scale.

West Northamptonshire EPS is a Safer Recruitment service, and all successful candidates will be required to have an Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.

Applicants should note that this post is not on Soulbury Pay and Conditions.