Clinical or Forensic Psychologist - Development Post

Job overview

Senior Clinical or Forensic Psychologist - Band 8a or Band 7 Development Post – WTE 1.0 (37.5 hours).

An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Clinical or Forensic Psychologist to join an established, team of Clinical and Forensic Psychologists in the Secure Services for people with Intellectual Disabilities at Brooklands Hospital. The post holder will provide clinical and forensic input into the Men’s and Women’s (Low and Medium) Secure Services at Brooklands Hospital.

The secure service ethos is to help and support people who present considerable risk to others (as well as themselves) to return to a less restrictive environment and/or the community as soon as possible. The contribution of psychological services is highly valued within the teams and service management, and it is fully integrated within collaborative multi-disciplinary teams.

The successful candidate will have post qualification experience of working with forensic populations and/or considerable experience of working with people with Intellectual (learning) disabilities who present considerable risk to others.

Main duties of the job

The main duties include: Delivering psychological assessments, individual and group therapies, team formulations, reflective practice and offering supervision and training, and undertaking audit/research. Contributing to and leading on service development projects is an important part of this role.

The psychology department at Brooklands is a well-established and supportive service and the successful applicant will receive support to further develop their skills and knowledge, through good quality supervision and training opportunities.  The team, work from a number of different therapeutic approaches including CBT, CAT, CFT, EMDR and Schema Therapy.  The service offers a range of clinical and offence focused treatment programmes e.g., DBT and structured offence programmes and PBS is embedded in the service.

All members of the psychology team receive excellent support, good supervision, and opportunities for continuing professional development. The post holder will be trained and supported to develop their forensic assessment skills and/or therapeutic skills in a model applicable to the service user population. There is opportunity for personal and service development work.

The service has strong links with local clinical and forensic training doctorate courses and is a placement provider.  There are also strong links with community learning disability teams across Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

If you do not meet the criteria for the band 8a role, we will also support applications from candidates that meet the criteria for the band 7 role and job description (please see "additional documents" on the NHS Jobs).

In these instances, the successful candidate would be appointed to a "Developmental Post" role at band 7 and provided opportunities and support to progress to the band 8a role upon successful completion of a preceptorship programme. It is expected that this process will be achievable within a period of up to two years, although timescales may vary between different staff members in Developmental Posts. In the event that elements of the expected competencies to progress to 8a are not fully met, the role will remain as a band 7.

This will be further discussed as part of the interview and recruitment process as appropriate. Applications from newly qualified/soon to qualify clinicians would therefore be welcomed.

The post is subject to an enhanced DBS Check.