Central & North West London NHS Foundation Trust is a Top Employer Award Winner & works in partnership to provide responsive & dependable primary care, mental health, intellectual disability & substance misuse services to the diverse & culturally rich communities we serve.

We are seeking to recruit an enthusiastic, dedicated & motivated Psychologist or Psychological Therapist to join our Perinatal Mental Health team.

This post offers a very exciting opportunity to contribute to the establishment of a high quality perinatal mental health provision within our female prison service line. The post holder will form a key part of the multi-disciplinary team & will be able to demonstrate a range of skills & qualities that can help with the ongoing development of our specialist Perinatal Mental Health Team, which has now been live for 2 yrs.

Our service offers multidisciplinary perinatal mental health assessment & treatment to women during pregnancy, who give birth while in custody & those who reside with their infants on the Mother & Baby Unit at HMP Bronzefield. As part of this, we offer a range of interventions including EMDR, CBT, DBT, Video Interaction Guidance and the Circle of Security Parenting Programme.

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.

Main duties of the job

There will be a strong focus on trauma-informed psychological approaches, as well as formulating and working with the complex relational dynamics commonly elicited by those within forensic settings. As such, there will be opportunity for direct clinical work as well as working with the system around our service users. This can include wider prison staff, midwifery services and voluntary organisations. There is an emphasis on providing training, supervision and consultation to the environment to support the wellbeing of women in prison.

Patients who access our service, typically have complex attachment histories, including early developmental and later adult trauma and therefore often present with severe and enduring mental health needs. It is also not uncommon for our patients to have experienced a history of complex perinatal or child losses of multiple types, alongside domestic violence and substance misuse difficulties, predisposing them to further vulnerability within the perinatal period. The successful applicant will therefore be making an important contribution to disrupting the intergenerational transmission of trauma.

As part of the role, you will also be supervising Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Clinical Psychologists.

About us

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. Psychologist and Psychological Therapists 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.

The Perinatal Mental Health Service operates across 3 women's prisons, (HMP Bronzefield, HMP Send, HMP Downview).This post will be based at HMP Bronzefield but travel between sites will be part of the role. The post attracts HCAS.

Expertise and experience in perinatal mental health is desirable but not essential as we provide a comprehensive training package to all new starters within the first year.

Job description Job responsibilities

Main Clinical Responsibilities:

To carry out specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the service, based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex psychological 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 clients care, in order to reach a psychological formulation of the clients difficulties.

To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a clients mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the clients 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 provide specialist assessments of clients presenting with cognitive impairment due to a variety of causes or organic conditions, including pre-assessment counselling and neuropsychological and functional assessments, and to be able to adjust psychological interventions to work effectively with people presenting with complex needs due to cognitive impairment and organic disorders.

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, family or group.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients formulations, diagnoses and treatment plans.

To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies serving the client group.

To undertake risk assessment, formulation and management for individual clients with complex presentations and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment, formulation and management.

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary care.

To promote and participate in multi-disciplinary team working, development and liaison.

To promote actively, user and carer involvement in care planning and service development.

To be up to date with both de-escalation, physical breakaway and PMVA techniques appropriate to the service environment.

Person Specification Education and Qualifications Essential

• oDoctoral level training in clinical psychology, including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology, equivalent to that accredited by the BPS
• oEvidence of post-qualification specialist training, experience and developing expertise in a specialist area of clinical practice.
• oHCPC Registered

Desirable

• oPre- or Post-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.

Previous Experience Essential

• oDemonstrate significant assessed further specialist training / experience of working as a specialist clinical psychologist (or equivalent) through having received a minimum of 50 hours clinical supervision
• oExperience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient settings.
• oExperience 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.
• oExperience of working effectively in multidisciplinary settings and representing psychology within the context of multi-disciplinary care
• oAdvanced knowledge, experience and expertise in at least one specialist area of clinical practice gained through specialist training and supervised practice (e.g. psychotherapy, neuropsychology, risk assessment, clinical supervision).

Desirable

• oExperience of teaching and training
• oExperience of working in secure environments and/or forensic mental health

Abilities Essential

• oSkills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration.
• oWell 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.
• oSkills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
• oPossesses range of clinical knowledge, skills & information technology expertise relevant to post.
• oCan demonstrate competence in supervision of junior qualified psychology and MDT staff and professional psychology trainees.
• oAbility to teach and train others, using a variety of complex multi-media materials suitable for presentations within public, professional and academic settings.
• oAbility 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.
• oBroad knowledge of models of assessment, management and treatment of mentally disordered and PD offenders.
• oAbility to work intensively with people who present challenges in the complexity of their problems and needs, including sexual and violent offending and self-harming and suicidal behaviours
• oHigh level of ability to plan and organise clinical service provision to meet service demands, and to maintain high quality professional practice.
• oContinually develop specialist knowledge and skills by engaging in relevant study and Continuing Professional Development relevant to the forensic population.
• oDoctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
• oExcellent IT skills.

Desirable

• oKnowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult-to-treat groups (e.g. people with additional disabilities).
• oCan apply psychological knowledge creatively in developing new initiatives.
• oAbility to write reports for varied audiences, including courts and purchasers of services.

Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

333-D-HJ-1307