Job overview
Are you an experienced and passionate psychological practitioner looking for your next leadership opportunity?
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) is seeking an enthusiastic and highly skilled Band 8a Senior Psychological Therapist to join our Health & Justice Psychology Team based at HMP Downview. This is an exciting opportunity to play a pivotal role in delivering high-quality, evidence-based psychological services within a specialist prison healthcare setting.
Working within a multidisciplinary team, you will provide expert psychological assessment, formulation and intervention for individuals with complex mental health needs, trauma histories, neurodiverse presentations and personality difficulties. You will lead psychological practice within the service through consultation, supervision, training and service development activities.
Main duties of the job
About the Role
As a Senior Psychological Therapist, you will:
- Deliver highly specialist psychological assessment and intervention to individuals and groups.
- Hold and manage a complex clinical caseload.
- Provide clinical supervision and professional leadership to Band 7 therapists, assistant psychologists, trainee psychologists and other staff.
- Offer consultation and psychologically informed guidance to multidisciplinary colleagues.
- Contribute to service development, quality improvement, audit and research activities.
- Lead on psychological governance and support the development of innovative and responsive services.
- Promote trauma-informed, person-centred and recovery-focused approaches to care.
About You
We are looking for a compassionate and motivated practitioner with:
- A professional qualification and registration as a Practitioner Psychologist, accredited CBT Therapist, or accredited Psychotherapist/Counsellor with relevant post-qualification specialist training.
- Significant post-qualification experience working with complex presentations.
- Experience of supervision, consultation and multidisciplinary team working.
- Knowledge of evidence-based psychological therapies and psychological assessment.
- Excellent communication, leadership and relationship-building skills.
- A commitment to equality, diversity and psychologically informed care.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Please see attached detailed job description & person specification.
We are a friendly team and encourage any prospective candidate to contact us with any questions and/or to book an informal visit. For an informal discussion about the role, please contact the recruiting manager. Jacquelyn.Kennedy3@nhs.net
Applicant requirements
You must have appropriate UK professional registration.
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Person specification
PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE
Essential
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including outpatient, community, primary care 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.
- Experience of representing psychology within context of multidisciplinary care
- Experience of the application of applied psychology in different cultural contexts and experience of working within a multicultural framework
- Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialist psychological therapies in specific difficult to treat groups (e.g. mental illness, personality disorder, dual diagnosis, people with additional disabilities etc)
- Evidence of continuing professional development as required by the HCPC
Desirable
- Experience of working in secure environments and/or forensic mental health.
- Experience of using a trauma informed approach.
- Lived experience of mental health Issues.
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATIONS
Essential
- Doctoral level training in clinical, forensic or counselling 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
- HCPC Registered as a practitioner psychologist
- Evidence of post-qualification specialist training, experience and developing expertise in a specialist area of clinical practice relevant to this role.
Desirable
- Pre- or Post-qualification training and qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, ABILITIES
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
- Can demonstrate competence in supervision of junior qualified psychology and MDT staff and professional psychology trainees.
- 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
- Broad knowledge of models of assessment, management and treatment of offenders with mental health difficulties and personality disorders
- Ability 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.
- High level of ability to plan and organise clinical service provision to meet service demands, and to maintain high quality professional practice.
- Experience of software e.g. SPSS, EXCEL
- Evidence of continual development of specialist knowledge and skills through engaging in relevant study and Continuing Professional Development relevant to the forensic population.
Desirable
- Ability to write reports for varied audiences, including courts and purchasers of services.
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Applying for this NHS job
This advert is for Senior Psychological Therapist - Clinical/Counselling/Forensic with Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust in HMP Downview. It is listed as a Band 8 Mental health professionals role. The advertised salary is £63,665 - £70,887 per annum inc HCAS pro rata. The contract type is Permanent. The application deadline is 06 Sep 2026.
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