Clinical/Forensic/Counselling Psychologist or Psychological Therapist

Job overview

The post is based at HMP Wandsworth where you will work with a team of psychological therapists and multi-professional mental health colleagues to embed psychologically informed care in the prison.

Main duties of the job

The role is dynamic, with clinical tasks, staff support, supervisory roles and non-clinical responsibilities carried out with the support of the psychology leadership. The postholder will be able to demonstrate a keen interest in working with people who have led chaotic lives and who present with complex mental health needs and forensic histories.

The postholder will supervise pre-qualified psychological therapists including assistant psychologists, students and trainees.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Main Responsibilities

To provide direct psychological care (assessment and intervention) and support the delivery of psychologically informed care by all disciplines within the service

To provide highly specialist psychological therapy assessments, formulations and interventions

To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment,  treatment and discharge of community clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans, including taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans with input from clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved in the network of care

To provide culturally appropriate psychological therapy interventions with service users, carers or families of referred clients when required

To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients family carers and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment  plans of clients under their care

To produce reports on clients, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of psychological assessment and formulation and treatment outcome in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers

To undertake psychometric and neuropsychological testing as appropriate, including selecting the appropriate tests, administering and scoring the tests in accordance with the manual, and interpreting the findings in the context of all relevant information

To undertake risk assessment, risk monitoring and risk management for  individual clients in line with Trust and inter-agency policies and procedures, and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management

To work in partnership with other disciplines and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory agencies as appropriate

Management responsibilities

To provide line management to designated assistant psychologists

Provide supervision to students and trainees and to multi-disciplinary colleagues delivering psychological interventions

To support recruitment of assistant psychologists to the service for those line managing, to ensure local standards are implemented for the  allocation and review of work, job planning, review of performance sickness management and initial stages of grievance or disciplinary action

To oversee quality line management and supervision within the team structure, ensuring that staff and trainees acquire the necessary skills, competencies and experience to contribute effectively to health care, and to contribute to the assessment and evaluation of such competencies

To provide highly specialist advice, consultation and training of staff working with the client group across a range of agencies and settings, where appropriate. This may include work with the Criminal Justice System and Children’s Services

Leadership

To provide and support specialist clinical placements for students and trainees in  applied psychological practice.

To contribute to the delivery of teaching and training to junior psychological  practitioners and specialist training to other professions.

To contribute to the development of the knowledge and skills base within the service by maintaining an active awareness of current developments in psychological therapy and risk assessment / management and to implement knowledge gained in practice.

To disseminate research and service evaluation findings through presentations and published articles

To continue to gain wider post-qualification experience of psychological therapies and risk assessment / management, over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post-holder is employed.

Research

To undertake the planning, initiation and completion of research, service, evaluation and audits, and quality improvement projects relevant to the service  and the directorate research agenda.

To oversee the planning, initiation and completion of research, service evaluation and audits by students and trainees.

To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.

Communication

To communicate, in a highly skilled and sensitive manner, to clients, family carers  and others as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care.

Liaise with other team members including members of other disciplines and agencies responsible for a client’s care.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

You will need to provide:

Proof of right to work documentation

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.

Address History:

5 years address history will be needed.

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

In order to assist you in obtaining a Police Certificate, guidance can be sought from:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/criminal-records-checks-for-overseas-applicants

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en).