This role provides senior clinical leadership in the development, delivery, and embedding of systemic family therapy across the Forensic Directorate inpatient services, spanning medium secure and low secure settings. Low secure services include non-LD adult male wards as well as Learning Disability wards.
The post holder will operate with a high level of autonomy and professional authority, translating the Trust’s approved Family Therapy business case and policy into consistent, safe, and clinically effective practice across the forensic pathway. You will contribute to governance, service development, and evaluation activity, supporting equitable access to family interventions across medium secure, low secure, and low secure rehabilitation pathways.
The role combines advanced specialist clinical practice with service-level leadership. Alongside a defined caseload of complex family work, the post holder will provide consultation, supervision, and strategic input to multidisciplinary teams, ensuring that family-inclusive practice is integrated into assessment, risk management, care planning, rehabilitation planning, and discharge processes across diverse forensic populations.
We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles like this one.
Main duties of the job
Responsibilities include:
Clinical Practice and Risk Interface
Provide highly specialist systemic assessments and family therapy interventions with service users and their families across forensic inpatient services, where presentations are complex and risk, safeguarding, trauma, and relational rupture are prominent.
Adapt systemic approaches to meet the communication, cognitive, and neurodevelopmental needs of individuals within Learning Disability services, ensuring accessible and neuroaffirming practice.
Apply advanced systemic formulation to understand how family and relational dynamics interact with mental disorder, detention, and offending-related risk, and to support MDT decision‑making.
Contribute to psychologically informed risk formulation and management by advising MDTs on relational factors that may amplify or mitigate risk, including issues relevant to safeguarding, public protection, and victim considerations.
Work collaboratively with Responsible Clinicians and ward teams to ensure family perspectives appropriately inform CPA processes, care planning, leave planning, and discharge pathways.
Communicate complex and sensitive clinical information to families and networks in a manner that is clear, containing, and proportionate to risk and capacity.
‘The High-Cost Area (HCA) allowance, also referred to as London Weighting, is a payment made to employees who work in London and the surrounding areas.
As this post is based in Dartford, Gravesham or Swanley, the successful applicant will receive an additional payment each month.
5% of basic salary, subject to a minimum payment of £1,346 per year and a maximum payment of £2,270 per year (the agreed annual amount will be divided into 12 equal amounts and paid monthly) (2026/27 figures)
Training, Qualifications and Registration
- Core professional qualification in psychology, social work, nursing, psychotherapy, or a related discipline.
- Postgraduate qualification in Systemic Family Therapy recognised by AFT or equivalent.
- Current registration with an appropriate professional regulatory body.
- Ability to adapt systemic and family therapy interventions to meet the needs of individuals with cognitive or communication differences within secure environments.
- Additional postgraduate or post‑qualification training in trauma‑informed, neuroaffirming, dialogical or forensic‑relevant approaches.
- Experience of working across complex forensic inpatient pathways, including either general adult secure services or Learning Disability secure services.
- Experience contributing to rehabilitation and step‑down pathway planning within secure services.
Experience
- Substantial post‑qualification experience delivering systemic family therapy with complex presentations.
- Experience working within mental health services.
- Experience of multidisciplinary working, including consultation and contribution to CPA, care planning, and risk management.
- Experience contributing to service development, implementation, or embedding of new clinical models.
- Experience of audit, service evaluation, or research activity.
- Experience working in secure settings or complex risk environments.
- Experience providing formal clinical supervision.
Knowledge and Skills
- Advanced systemic formulation skills, including work with risk, trauma, safeguarding, and neurodiversity.
- Strong understanding of the impact of detention, secure care, and mental disorder on families and relational networks.
- Ability to communicate complex clinical and systemic information clearly to families, MDT colleagues, and senior stakeholders.
- High level of reflective capacity, emotional containment, and professional judgement.
- Knowledge of forensic pathways and secure care transitions.
- Experience influencing service‑level or Trust‑wide clinical practice.
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
£66,582 to £77,368 a yearper annum + (high-cost area supplement)
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