Join Us

BACKGROUND

The Helen Bamber Foundation is a busy charity supporting asylum seekers, refugees, victims of human trafficking and other human rights violations. Our specialist team of therapists, doctors and legal experts hold an international reputation for providing therapeutic care, medical consultation, legal protection, and practical support. The Helen Bamber Foundation is committed to safeguarding vulnerable adults and children. The British Red Cross (BRC) is part of the global Red Cross and Red Crescent humanitarian network and is a movement that connects human kindness with human crisis. Following an incident or emergency in the UK, the BRC helps people cope by providing practical and emotional support to individuals affected.

The Helen Bamber Foundation is looking for a Practitioner Psychologist/Psychotherapist to join our therapy team and embed with the BRC in Leicester or Derby. The partnership aims to increase access to trauma focused interventions for those fleeing conflict (particularly the conflict in Ukraine), trafficking, torture and other forms of human cruelty and who find themselves in locations where they have little access to much needed mental health treatments. The BRC’ Psychosocial Mental Health Team alongside the BRC’ Refugee Support caseworkers will, in partnership with the Helen Bamber Foundation, deliver direct casework, psychological assessment, formulation and diagnosis, and treatment support into two BRC Refugee Support service offices in Leicester and Derby over two and a half years. Working together the project will:

• deliver trauma focused treatment to individuals, in particular to those impacted by the Ukraine conflict, who would most benefit from direct treatment and would not receive appropriate treatment elsewhere.
• increase through the provision of triage and casework support, assessment and diagnosis, access to local health care provision; and
• build the capacity and confidence of local health care providers to increase access to trauma focused treatment, including those impacted by the conflict in the Ukraine.

The partnership has been designed to meet the needs of individuals who have experienced complex trauma as well as address the needs of BRC’ Refugee Support teams who have identified significant unmet need in local mental health service provision for these individuals. The partnership will be implemented in Leicester and Derby.

OVERVIEW OF THE ROLE

As the Practitioner Psychologist/Psychotherapist delivering the partnership with the BRC you will be based in two BRC Refugee Support services in Leicester and Derby whilst remaining part of the Helen Bamber Foundation Team. You will be responsible, with support from the senior Helen Bamber Foundation clinical team, for delivering assessments of individuals referred by the BRC Senior Psychosocial Practitioner. You will support effective referrals into local mental health services, and, where treatment cannot be provided elsewhere and would have significant benefits, deliver a range of therapeutic interventions to a small number of BRC clients. You will provide and support outreach and training of local health care providers to increase their capacity to support trauma survivors.

This role will include delivery of highly specialised psychological assessments for both medico-legal and clinical purposes, provision of appropriate evidence-based therapies, delivery of training to local mental health providers as well as to staff from non-clinical backgrounds who have significant client contact, internal relationship and partnership building, monitoring of outcomes, and potentially the supervision of a trainee clinical psychologist on a final year specialist placement. The role will include input into partnership development, policy, research and fundraising.

We are looking for someone who is committed to working therapeutically with individuals who have experienced human rights abuses and who have developed trauma spectrum disorders as a result. In addition to proven experience in working therapeutically with this client group, the candidate will have a passion for human rights work beyond the individual client work, and a desire to contribute to effecting change at a policy level. This role requires the ability to react and respond creatively and appropriately to the needs of the service and the partnership. You will be required to travel to London occasionally to participate in meetings, professional development and other activities (this travel will be reimbursed).

We particularly encourage applications from underrepresented groups in Psychological Therapy (such as people with disabilities, those from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic backgrounds or those who have lived experience similar to that of the clients we support).

Please note that the successful candidates will be offered the role subject to suitable references and a DBS check. This role will require disclosure of both the adult and child barring lists. If appointed, you will be required to give your consent to HBF to receive regular updates on your criminal records status and to disclose any relevant convictions incurred during your time with us. 

To apply for this position, please upload your CV and covering letter to the relevant link on the Join Us section of the Helen Bamber website by 26th April 2025 – please note that we will close applications early should we receive sufficient interest.

We encourage applicants to apply for the post at the earliest opportunity. Regrettably, we can only notify applicants if they are shortlisted.

Interviews for this post will be held on a rolling basis.