Psychologist

As aPsychologist,your responsibilities will vary. You will:

If you are interested incareer development,we have a wide range of opportunities for you to develop your skills and experience, which include bothinternal and external optionsfor development and learning.

In this senior

clinician role, the Principal Psychologist will provide clinical leadership to

the mental health team, ensuring the delivery of effective psychological

services that support the unique challenges faced by individuals in prison. The

Principal Psychologist will work collaboratively with the prison's senior

leadership team and external stakeholders, and will actively contribute to

regional quality review processes and service development meetings, ensuring

that mental health services are continuously improved and aligned with best

practices and meeting agreed targets. This role will work closely with the

wider national psychological therapies team and contribute to service model

review and improvement against new research and in line with best practice and

NICE guidelines. Additionally, the role involves contributing to regional

quality review and service development meetings to ensure that mental health

services are responsive to the needs of individuals in prison and actively work

to minimize the cycle of intergenerational trauma. By leading initiatives that

connect individuals with essential resources and support, the Principal

Psychologist will play a vital role in promoting the mental well-being of both patients

and staff within a remand prison setting.

To provide highly specialist psychological assessment of high complex 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 make highly specialist clinical decisions and clinical judgements

about patient care, processes and service developments;

To provide specialist trauma informed, psychological insight, guidance

and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patients

formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan;

To lead and evaluate the implementation of 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;

Foster good working relationships with Offender Management,

Probation to Reconnect services to a psychologically informed understanding of

patients needs during transition into open conditions or release into the

community;

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.

Professional -

To attend regional and national Psychological Therapies meetings,

service development and other relevant meetings regularly;

The Health in Justice team at Practice Plus Group makes a real difference across over 53 prisons, young offenders and immigration removal centres. Were the UKs leading independent provider of NHS services to over 40,000 patients in secure environments, always putting their needs first, regardless of their background.

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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Desirable: - Please click the apply button to see the Job Description and Person Specification

Experience

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Desirable: - Please click the apply button to see the Job Description and Person Specification

Additional Criteria

Essential: - Please click the apply button to see the Job Description and Person Specification

Desirable: - Please click the apply button to see the Job Description and Person Specification