An excellent opportunity has arisen for an experienced Clinical or Forensic Psychologist, who is passionate about working with women who require secure care, to join the Women's Forensic Service within the West London Specialist and Forensic Service. This is a full-time post based primarily on the Medium / Low secure wards in The Orchard Unit.

West London NHS Trust provides a broad range of forensic mental health care in adult male, female and adolescent services, across high, medium and low security settings, as well as in a community and court diversion setting. The trust provides specialist forensic mental health care across eight boroughs in North West London, in addition to national enhanced medium and high secure services.

We welcome applications for those interested in flexible or part time working.

Main duties of the job

You will be responsible for providing a high quality psychology service across the Orchard Unit including to the Enhanced medium secure wards (WEMSS). As such you'll be able to utilise varied skills in assessment, formulation and group and individual evidence-based intervention tailored to meet the challenging needs of the inpatient client group. As a key member of the MDT, you will be responsible for developing and implementing psychologically informed treatment for a very diverse group of female service users who are detained in medium and low secure settings, who are mentally disordered offenders with severe and enduring mental disorders (both mental illness and personality disorder) and serious forensic histories and have a wide range of psychiatric, psychological and criminological problems and extremely complex needs.

As well as direct clinical work the role will involve service development and audit, staff training / supervision and frequent collaborative working within the psychological therapies department and with MDT colleagues.

About us

West London NHS Trust is one of the most diverse providers of mental health, community and social care in the UK.

Our 3,982 staff care for people in hospital and in the community, helping them to recover and go on to lead full and productive lives. We aim to be the best organisation of our kind in the country.

We provide care and treatment for more than 800,000 people living in the London boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow, delivering services in the community (at home, in GP surgeries and care homes), hospital, specialist clinics and forensic (secure) units.

We'rerated good overall by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

Together, we're committed to promoting hope and wellbeing, working with patients, service users, carers, families and partners across the communities we serve.

We are keen to ensure that our workforce reflects the community it serves, particularly in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, LGBTQ+ and experience of mental illness.

Job description

Job responsibilities

The Orchard Unit is a purpose built women-only medium secure unit, where the emphasis is on relational security. It provides a twenty bedded national Womens Enhanced Medium Secure Service (WEMSS) and twenty five medium secure (MS) and fifteen low secure (LS) beds for patients from North West London. You will work within the Low / Medium secure wards with a warm, supportive and experienced Multi-Disciplinary Team. Within the Orchard we provide secure care for service-users, who have complex needs related to serious mental illness, personality disorder and offending behaviour, and we are committed to providing high quality, evidence based interventions within a recovery framework.

Working within the Womens service will provide you with the opportunity to work within the countrys largest NHS provider of female medium / low secure services with women with diagnoses of personality disorders and /or mental illness who have a history of either offending or high risk behaviours.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Good honours degree (2:i minimum) in Psychology. Eligibility for graduate membership of BPS.
• Post-graduate doctorate in clinical / forensic psychology (or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996 or those in lateral transfer) as accredited by the BPS.
• Registration with the Health and Care Professions Council

Desirable

• Other related academic qualifications
• Training in clinical supervision for Doctoral, and equivalent, trainees
• Evidence of post-doctoral training in psychological therapy techniques

Experience

Essential

• Experience of working as a qualified (specialist) psychologist for a minimum of one year in a forensic clinical setting (or equivalent)

Desirable

• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of having facilitated/co-facilitated psychological therapy groups
• Experience of working clinically with female service users in secure settings
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of administration, scoring and written interpretation of formal personality tools and/or neuropsychological assessments

Knowledge

Essential

• Advanced specialist knowledge, both theoretical and practical, of psychology applied to forensic clinical practice
• Completion of at least 1 year's supervised practice in specialist forensic clinical practice
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and its implications for work with mentally disordered offenders

Desirable

• Specialist knowledge of the assessment and treatment of trauma.
• Specialist theoretical and practical knowledge of the assessment and treatment of personality disorder and mental illness.

Skills

Essential

• Able to provide and receive highly complex, highly sensitive or highly contentious information, where there are significant barriers to acceptance which need to be overcome using the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills such as would be required when communicating in a hostile, antagonistic or highly emotive atmosphere
• Able to make judgements involving highly complex facts or situations, which require the evaluation of a range of options (e.g. the assessment of specialist clinical conditions and the determination of treatment options), Where expert opinions may differ
• Able to plan, prioritise and organise own service user caseload, treatment programmes (individual or group) involving other staff, and other aspects of the work such as research activity
• Keyboard skills
• Post-graduate level knowledge of research design and methodology
• Able to maintain intense concentration frequently and for prolonged periods with unpredictable patients (e.g. in the assessment and treatment of mentally disordered offender patients)
• Able to function in potentially traumatic circumstances and in highly emotionally distressing circumstances on a frequent basis (e.g. in dealing with patients with serious mental illness, histories of homicide and serious violence, self-harm, sexual abuse)
• Able to provide services in environments with patients who are disturbed and sometimes violent and where the awareness of the risk of assault must always be maintained
• Able to hold the stress of patients compulsorily detained in a secure hospital
• Able to respond adaptably to rapidly changing service demands

Desirable

• Knowledge of SPSS

Other Requirements

Essential

• Evidence of continuing professional development
• Psychomotor skills necessary to administer complex psychological tests and video equipment
• Able to complete satisfactorily breakaway training
• Able to use database, word processing and test administration/scoring software

Employer details

Employer name

West London NHS Trust

Address

Psychology

SOUTHALL

UB1 3EU

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

222-SF-495-B