London Pathways Partnership (LPP) is a consortium of five NHS Trusts delivering services in London and across three prisons as part of the National Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway programme. An exciting opportunity has arisen for a specialist clinical/counselling or forensic psychologist with an interest in personality disorder and/or complex care to take a lead role in the continuing development of the service.

The role is based in HMP Brixton on the London Pathways Unit (LPU), which is a treatment and progression service for high risk high harm personality disordered offenders from London who are approaching release. The LPU role involves assessment, formulation, psychological and psycho-social interventions, the development of an enabling and psychologically-informed environment, and staff training.

Main duties of the job

To provide specialist psychological assessments of mentally and personality disordered offenders referred to the forensic directorate. This requires 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 clients, family members and others involved in the client's care.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client's mental health problems and risky behaviours, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client's problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals, carers, families and groups, within and across teams 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 highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group

About us

Our mission is to make a positive difference to people's lives by improving the quality of life for all we serve. Our values are: We Care, We Respect, We are Inclusive - so we are looking for people who live and breathe these qualities when supporting service users and carers, and in their relationships with colleagues in the Trust and our partner organisations

Job description Job responsibilities

Please could you kindly refer to the job description and person specification attached to this vacancy.

Person Specification Education and Training Essential

• Doctoral level training in clinical/forensic psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developments as accredited by the BPS.
• Post-qualification training or demonstrable experience in a distinct psychological therapy or relevant service group (e.g. forensic mental health or personality disorder).
• Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
• Completion of further post-doctoral post-qualification specialist training including training in supervision of trainee clinical psychologists.

Experience Essential

• Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across a range of care settings, including outpatient, and inpatient settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, across the whole life course presenting problems that reflect the full range of clinical severity including maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse
• Completion of two years post-doctoral post-qualification supervised clinical experience with the client group of the post (personality disorder and/or forensic services) or a related client group.
• Experience of working with families, carers and / or significant others.
• Experience of teaching, training and/or supervision.
• Experience of the application of clinical psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working in a prison setting

Knowledge and Skills Essential

• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• Well developed skills in the ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, complex, highly technical and/or clinically sensitive information to clients, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (eg personality disorder, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the client group and mental health.

Other Essential

• Ability to form good working relationships with others in a multidisciplinary setting.
• Ability to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• 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.
• Proven interest in working with families, carers and / or significant others.
• Personal experience of mental health problems.
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

363-FOR11828