Clinical/Forensic/Counselling Psychologist or Psychological Therapist
The post is based at HMP Wandsworth where you will work with a team of psychological therapists and multi-professional mental health colleagues to embed psychologically informed care in the prison.
Main duties of the job
The role is dynamic, with clinical tasks, staff support, supervisory roles and non-clinical responsibilities carried out with the support of the psychology leadership. The postholder will be able to demonstrate a keen interest in working with people who have led chaotic lives and who present with complex mental health needs and forensic histories.
The postholder will supervise pre-qualified psychological therapists including assistant psychologists, students and trainees.
About us
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes. We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
- We’re Kind
- We Listen
- We Care
Job responsibilities
Main Responsibilities
To provide direct psychological care (assessment and intervention) and support the delivery of psychologically informed care by all disciplines within the service.
To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions.
To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of community clients managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, their carers, referring agents and other network participants.
To provide culturally appropriate psychological therapy interventions with service users, carers or families of referred clients when required.
To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family and carers any information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.
To produce timely reports on clients that convey key findings of psychological assessment and treatment outcomes in a clear manner understandable to recipients, including clients and referrers.
To undertake psychometric and neuropsychological testing as appropriate, selecting, administering, scoring and interpreting the tests in accordance with manual guidance and contextual information.
To undertake risk assessment, risk monitoring and risk management for individual clients in line with Trust and inter‑agency policies and procedures, and to provide advice to other professionals on psychological aspects of risk assessment.
To work in partnership with other disciplines and maintain links with statutory and non‑statutory agencies as appropriate.
Management responsibilities
To provide line management to designated assistant psychologists.
To provide supervision to students, trainees and multi-disciplinary colleagues delivering psychological interventions.
To support recruitment of assistant psychologists, ensuring local standards for work allocation, job planning, performance review, sickness management and initial stages of grievance or disciplinary action.
To oversee quality line management and supervision within the team structure, ensuring staff and trainees acquire necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to health care and to assess such competencies.
To provide highly specialist advice, consultation and training to staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, including work with the Criminal Justice System and Children’s Services.
Leadership
To provide and support specialist clinical placements for students and trainees in applied psychological practice.
To contribute to the delivery of teaching and training to junior psychological practitioners and specialist training to other professions.
To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in psychological therapy and risk assessment/management and implementing knowledge gained in practice.
To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles.
To continue to gain wider post‑qualification experience of psychological therapies and risk assessment/management beyond that provided within the principal service area where the post‑holder is employed.
Research
To undertake planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits, and quality improvement projects relevant to the service and the directorate research agenda.
To oversee the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits by students and trainees.
To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence-based practice in individual work and when working with other team members.
Communication
To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.
Liaise with other team members including members of other disciplines and agencies responsible for a client’s care.
Vetting and Documentation Requirements
All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. Vetting will be completed as part of pre‑employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.
Applicants must provide proof of right to work, photographic ID, address documentation and, where applicable, Home Office share code or overseas police check certificates in English. Five‑year address history or a police certificate in English may be required for certain applicants.
Person Specification
Education/Qualifications
- Entry‑level qualification in applied psychological therapy/mental health/social welfare profession or equivalent and demonstrable practice in this field (e.g., professional Doctorate, or combination of MSc plus PG Diploma level/supervised practice/additional training) accepted for professional registration.
- Additional training beyond entry‑level qualification in a specialised area of psychological practice (formal post‑qualification training or an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice) assessed by a registered body and/or an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma or higher.
- Registered with a professional or regulatory body as appropriate to psychological therapy discipline (e.g., HCPC, UKCP, BACP, BABCP).
Skills/Abilities/Knowledge
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management requiring sustained and intense concentration.
- Ability to administer, score and interpret psychometric and neuropsychological tests with appropriate training and supervision.
- Well‑developed communication skills, orally and in writing, to convey complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, families, carers and professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non‑professional groups.
Other
- Ability to teach and train others using complex multi‑media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
- Experience of working with diversity, including but not limited to a multicultural framework.
- Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance as appropriate, to support and maintain clinical practice in the face of regular exposure to highly emotive material and challenging behaviour.
- Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multi‑disciplinary setting.
- Interest and ability to contribute to service development.
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.
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