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Clinical / Forensic / Counselling Psychologist

Employer
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Location
Leyland
Salary
£41,659 to £54,619 a year per annum
Closing date
4 Apr 2023

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Mersey Care NHS Trust is the health provider for the delivery of an innovative prison-based assessment and treatment service for residents with personality related needs.

This service is based within HMP Garth which is a category B men's adult prison based in Leyland, Lancashire. The service is part of the National Offender Personality Disorder Strategy and is delivered as a partnership between HMP Garth and Mersey Care NHS Trust.

We believe that this post provides a unique opportunity to be part of a psychologically led service with formulation and integrated team working at its core. The service provides 1:1 and group based interventions based on Professor John Livesley's framework and model of interventions for individuals with personality related needs.

These structured interventions are provided as part of a therapeutic milieu which involves a focus on attachment, trauma and systemic approaches, alongside comprehensive risk assessment and management. Core aims of the service are consistent with those of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway in improving psychological wellbeing, reducing risk, improving staff skills and competencies and pathway focussed intervention.

Applicants appointed to Band 7 will have a guaranteed offer of interview 12 months later where they will be interviewed against the 8a job description. Those with suitable qualification, knowledge, skills and experience will be appointed directly to the 8a position.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be joining a dedicated team of clinical and prison officer staff from a range of backgrounds and experience. Team members have high levels of skill, passion and enthusiasm (and humour!) and are committed to ensuring the on-going successful development of the service and the opportunities it provides for our population.

The post holder will contribute to the systematic provision of specialised psychological services to residents within the Beacon. Applicants should have doctoral level training in clinical psychology or equivalent or will be a qualified chartered forensic / counselling psychologist. You should have some experience of working with individuals with complex clinical and risk presentations including within institutional settings and as part of a multi-disciplinary team. This should include work with clients whose needs may meet criteria for a diagnosis of personality disorder and who may find it difficult to engage with services. Experience of working in complex service and organisational settings is required alongside an ability to constructively manage the personal, professional and ethical opportunities and challenges such work can involve.

About us

Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 11 million people.

We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.

At the heart of all we do is our commitment to 'perfect care' - care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We're currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.

At the Beacon service, we prioritise the development of our staff team and have proven that we value and nurture diverse clinical interests. Members of our team have been trained in MBT, CAT, EMDR, Schema Therapy, leadership, psychoanalytic/ psychodynamic models and systemic ways of working. We are committed to creating an empowered staff team. We strive to be reflective and support of each other which is vital given the challenges this work can entail.

Job description Job responsibilities

Full details of the main responsibilities of the post can be found in the job description and person specification.

We welcome visits to the service so please get in contact if you would like to arrange this.

Person Specification Qualifications Essential
  • Doctoral level training in clinical psychology or equivalent for those who trained prior to 1996 or MSc in Forensic / Counselling Psychology (or DFP qualifying exam), plus full membership and Chartered status of the Division of Forensic Psychology.
Desirable
  • Pre-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Experience Essential
  • Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of offenders across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care and in patient 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.
Desirable
  • Experience of teaching and training.
  • Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
Knowledge & 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 offenders, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
  • Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
  • Working level knowledge of research methodology, research design and complex, multivariate data analysis as practiced within the clinical fields of psychology.
Desirable
  • Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. 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 self reflect and use clinical supervision appropriately.
  • Ability to cope and deal with highly distressing emotional circumstances.
  • Ability to cope with unpleasant working conditions.
  • 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.
Desirable
  • Experience of working within a multicultural framework.


Any attachments will be accessible after you click to apply.

350-SEC4614049-F

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