Senior Psychologist - HMP Send Ripley, Hampshire, South East England, England
Job description
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust is a Top Employer Award Winner and works in partnership to provide responsive and dependable primary care, mental health, intellectual disability & substance misuse services to the diverse & culturally rich communities we serve.
In our quest to deliver patient-focused quality care we are looking for an innovative & enthusiastic Senior Psychologist or Psychological Therapist to join our forward thinking & expanding Mental Health Inreach Team at HMP Send. Working in partnership with the criminal justice system & other agencies, we provide responsive, dependable & high-quality primary care & mental health services to those in prison, to improve their health status & to encourage social inclusion.
We strive to deliver a culturally competent & responsive service that can meet the needs of our population. Black & minority ethnic women, including those from Gypsy, Roma & Irish Traveller communities, are over-represented in the criminal justice system. We hope to recruit a staff team reflective of the population we serve & welcome applications from those with protected characteristics, including minoritised ethnic groups.
You will either be an experienced clinician seeking an 8A position or a more newly qualified therapist who we will support from band 7 to achieve the 8A role. If you are passionate about a career in Health & Justice & could utilise this development opportunity, please do get in touch to discuss.
In this role you will be the joining counsellors and assistant psychologists to provide evidence based, high quality therapy provision, supervising assistant psychologists to provide stepped care interventions and holding a caseload of women for whom psychological therapy can help them overcome difficulties often developed from a life time of adversity and trauma.
You will be responsible for referral and caseload management and we would welcome those interested in improving quality and outcomes for our population. This role will also include consultation to HMPS and partner agencies to assist with safeguarding and managing complex presentations.
CNWL’s Health and Justice Services are led by a highly motivated team with vast experience in healthcare within secure environments. We employ a range of psychologists and psychological therapists with clinical, counselling and forensic trainings. Psychologists work within the mental health services in numerous sites, across prisons, YOIs and secure hospitals, with children and adults, men and women and across the range of security categories. Psychologists also lead four specialist Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) commissioned services and Sexual Behaviour Services in the youth estate.
Joining a large, forward-thinking Trust will bring successful candidates excellent development opportunities, an exciting career structure, and job satisfaction. Psychologists from across Health and Justice come together for professional and clinical development. We actively encourage and support continuous professional development and have access to specialist supervision, including for EMDR.
Main Clinical Responsibilities:
- Source and make available appropriate evidence based psychologically informed assessment tools. Including self-rating, rating scales, structured and semi structured interviews and provide appropriate training on their use within the multidisciplinary team to ensure these are embedded as part of a holistic assessment of mental health within the team.
- To contribute to set up and provision of assessments and interventions; coordinating and contributing to the delivery of individual and group therapies in the health care centre in the prison. Flexible working required as some interventions and mental health support will be offered outside core working hours on a rota basis.
- To provide specialist psychological assessments to service users within the Prison based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests, self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured observations and semi-structured interviews with service users and others involved in the service users’ care.
- To develop individual formulations and to lead team formulation planning applying theoretical models of the psychology of mental health and personality disorder and offending, to observed behaviour, cognitive, emotional and interpersonal patterns, for service users who present with complex clinical needs.
- To formulate and implement plans for the psychological treatment and/or management of a patient’s mental health and personality problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the patient’s problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy.
- To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, and groups, within the Prison, employed individually and in synthesis, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
- To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual.
- To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of service users whose problems are managed by psychologically based care plans.
- To integrate with the psychological formulation specialist knowledge of complex mental health disorders.
- To liaise closely with other members of the multidisciplinary team, giving authoritative specialist advice on psychological aspects of care, contributing directly to formulation, diagnosis and treatment planning.
- To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all those who use the service.
- To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice and training to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and management.
- To communicate in a skilled, persuasive and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment formulation and treatment plans of service users, and to monitor progress during the course of their multidisciplinary care.
- To develop networks and contacts to update the policy and practice of clinical psychology, particularly as applied to mentally disordered service users in prisons, to support professional and service development.
- To contribute to the development and maintenance of the highest professional standards of practice, through active participation in internal and external CPD training and development programmes.
- To contribute to the development and articulation of best practice in psychology across the service, by continuing to develop the skills of a reflexive and reflective scientist practitioner, taking part in regular professional supervision and appraisal and maintaining an active engagement with current developments in the fields of clinical and forensic psychology and related disciplines.
- To maintain the highest standards of clinical record keeping, including electronic data entry and recording, and report writing and the responsible exercise of professional self-governance, in accordance with professional codes of practice of the HCPC, British Psychological Society and Trust policies and procedures.
- To maintain up to date knowledge of legislation, national and local policies and issues in relation to both the specific patient group and mental health.
