Psychologist

As a ClusterPsychologist,your responsibilities will vary. You will:

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Psychologist will oversee psychological services across a cluster of more than

two prisons and/or IRCs, focusing on providing clinical oversight and

supporting the integration of trauma-informed practices within each facility.

With a minimum of five years of experience, this role will involve leadership

in the delivery of psychological therapies that align with the Practice Plus

Group's service model, ensuring high-quality, evidence-based interventions are

provided in accordance with NICE guidelines. By working closely with

multidisciplinary teams and overseeing the work of the qualified psychologists,

the Cluster Psychologist will ensure the delivery of high-quality mental health

care, lead the development, support the implementation and evaluation of trauma

informed and evidence-based treatment programs in line with the Psychological

Therapies Services (PTS) model, and contribute to the formulation of policies

and practices that promote psychological wellbeing. The Cluster Psychologist

will monitor service targets and regularly evaluate the effectiveness of

psychological inputs, while also delivering clinical interventions for complex

patients and facilitating complex case discussions within the teams.

Additionally, the role will include offering reflective practice sessions to

help mitigate the effects of secondary trauma among staff. By fostering strong

collaboration with prison and community stakeholders, the Cluster Psychologist

will support rehabilitation efforts and empower individuals in secure settings

to address and minimize the impact of trauma. This position will involve close

work with regional and national senior leadership colleagues to review and

enhance service quality, driving improvements in psychological service delivery

across the cluster.

To provide highly specialist psychological assessment of patients

based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex 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 patients, family members (when

appropriate) and others involved in the patients care.

To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation

to other professionals contributing directly to patients formulation,

diagnosis and treatment plan;

To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological

interventions for individuals and groups, adjusting and refining psychological

formulations drawing upon different explanatory models, and maintaining a

number of provisional hypotheses; engage in structured and dynamic risk

assessments;

To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking in to

account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors

including historical and developmental processes that have shaped the

individual, family or group;

To contribute directly and indirectly to a trauma informed,

psychologically-based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all

clients of the service, promoting the psychological mindedness of staff;

To contribute a psychosocial, trauma informed perspective within the

multidisciplinary team including for those patients not directly on the

psychologists caseload and attend individual patient reviews and risk

management meetings where appropriate;

To attend ACCT reviews and segregation reviews in the prison

as appropriate and to offer psychological opinion about management and appropriate

referrals in that context and, offer psychological understanding into CSIP

plans to support management of patients within the wing by prison staff;

To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, highly

complex/sensitive information concerning the assessment, formulation and

treatment plans to the patient, appropriate professional colleagues and to

family members, as appropriate, and to monitor and evaluate progress during the

course of multi-disciplinary discussions;

To be able to complete and interpret formal psychometric assessments;

To maintain accurate clinical records and keep the PTS dashboard up to

date with outcomes data for patient/service and staff outcomes;

To contribute to the development of specialized individual treatment

plans or packages of care for patients with complex psychological problems and

who may present a risk of harm to themselves or others;

To be able to manage the emotional impact of working, often

one-to-one, with people who can be in crisis, who can show high levels of

arousal and can be actively self-harming or suicidal;

To work jointly with other psychologists/therapists, to plan and hand

over the psychological assessment and treatments of patients that may continue

after either transfer to other prisons or released in the community or other

recovery-based settings.

In liaison with Mental Leads and/or Heads of Healthcare and the

National head of Psychological Therapies, identify opportunities for and

conduct service development projects in collaboration with other members of the

multidisciplinary team;

Participate in and contribute to CPD and peer supervision within the

wider healthcare team;

Active engagement in appropriate practice supervision.

Teaching, training and supervision

To receive

regular clinical supervision from an appropriately qualified and experienced

supervisor, in accordance with the BPS and the HCPC guidelines and, where

appropriate, from other senior professional colleagues and, to supervise junior

psychology colleagues and other therapists and MDT colleagues as appropriate;

To provide

training and supervision for members of the service (healthcare and prison) in

the delivery of psychologically, trauma informed care and treatment;

To provide

specialist advice and consultation and training to members of other disciplines

within the teams and to non-psychology manager of the teams on psychological

understanding, interventions and evaluations;

To develop and

deliver teaching as appropriate for members of staff from other disciplines;

for planning, delivery and clinical supervision of a specialist psychology

training placement for trainees on the postgraduate doctoral courses in

clinical/counselling and/ or forensic psychology;

To develop

further post-qualification experience in psychology over and above that

provided through training by engaging in a clearly planned CPD programme in

accordance with British Psychological Society guidance and in line with service

model and needs;

To contribute

to peer psychology supervision sessions.

Management, recruitment, policy and

service development

To plan and

supervise the work of undergraduate psychology students, and trainee

psychologists and be responsible for their support in their placements;

To contribute to proposals and

implementation of policy and service development changes in relation to

psychology and psychological therapies;

To advise the Mental

Health lead and/or Heads of Healthcare on those aspects of the service where

psychological matters need addressing in line with best practice and service

objectives;

Responsible for contributing to

the planning, organizing, auditing and developing of policy strategies for the

delivery of the psychological therapies service;

To contribute to proposals

for and implementation of policy and service development changes in relation to

psychology and psychological therapies within the service;

To take responsibility for

representation of the profession at appropriate service development and

governance meetings as agreed with their Line Manager and in line with Personal

and Professional Development Plans (PDPs);

To contribute to recruitment

shortlisting and interviewing as appropriate across the service;

Research, service evaluation & audit

To utilise theory, evidence based literature and research to support

evidence based practice in individual/ group work and work with other team

members;

To undertake project management, including complex audit, research and

service evaluation projects, with colleagues within the service, to help

develop service provision;

To prepare and

present information from audits, evaluations and research to professional

audiences within and outside the Organisation

To prepare

papers for publication based on audit, evaluation, research and development

work

To utilise theory, evidence based

literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work

and work with other team members.

To attend regional and national Psychological Therapies meetings,

service development and other relevant meetings regularly;

To adhere to professional/accrediting body codes of conduct, policies

and procedures (e.g. HCPC, BABCP, BPS);

To be aware of, adhere to, and where appropriate, contribute to the

formulation and review of Practice Plus Group policies and procedures;

To maintain and develop high standards of psychology/psychological

therapy practice by engaging in continuing professional development and

co-operative working/networking with therapists, clinical, counselling and

forensic psychologist colleagues;

To receive regular line management supervision by the Head of

To participate in the organisations annual performance review and

personal development planning process with the clinical supervisor and line

manager;

To keep up to date with

legislation, national directives, policies and NICE guidelines in relation to

the work delivered.

Practice Plus Groups purpose is to Unlock your best work life and we stand by our core values:

We are looking for caring, compassionate but also driven professionals who can help us drive our vision for a fair and inclusive healthcare access to all.

Secure environments are one of the most challenging, yet rewarding places for healthcare professionals to work. If you're looking for a role where you can develop your existing healthcare skills and learn something new every day in an environment that never stands still, then this could be the right opportunity for you.

Qualifications

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Experience

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Additional Criteria

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