Job summary
- Main area
- Forensic Psychology
- Grade
- Band 8a
- Contract
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full time
- Flexible working
- Job ref
- 364-A-8966
- Employer
- Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- Brockfield House
- Town
- Wickford, Essex
- Salary
- £53,755 - £60,504 per annum
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 25/05/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Clinical/Counselling/Forensic Psychologist - Forensic Psych Services
Band 8a
About Us
EPUT provides community health, mental health and learning disability services to support more than 3.2 million people living across Bedfordshire, Essex and Suffolk. Also:
- We are among the largest employers in the in the East of England region, with more than 10,000 staff working across more than 200 sites.
- We run the COVID-19 vaccination programme across mid and south Essex and Suffolk and north east Essex.
EPUT was formed on 1 April 2017 following the merger of North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (NEP) and South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT). A new leadership team was established at the Trust in 2020.
Our vision and values
Our Vision
“To be the leading health and wellbeing service in the provision of mental health and community care”.
Our Purpose
“We care for people every day. What we do together, matters”.
Our Values
- We Care
- We Learn
- We Empower
Our strategic objectives
- We will deliver safe, high quality integrated care services.
- We will enable each other to be the best that we can.
- We will work together with our partners to make our services better.
- We will help our communities to thrive.
Our services
- Mental Health Services
- Community Health Services
- Learning Disabilities Services
- Social Care
Find out more about the services we offer in our service directory.
Job overview
1 x Band 8a Clinical/Counselling/Forensic Psychologist Posts - (1.0wte)
This post is open to newly qualified psychologists (at Band 7) and trainees in their final year of training towards HCPC registration (at Band 6). If appointed at Band 6 or Band 7, the post-holder will be supported to work through a preceptorship programme towards Band 8a level.
An excellent opportunity has arisen for a HCPC Registered Clinical, Counselling or Forensic Practitioner Psychologist to join the multidisciplinary team at Brockfield House. This is a forensic inpatient unit providing low and medium secure services to adult males and females. This post may therefore include working across both medium and low secure male and female wards, as required. The teams provide effective clinical risk management and support the recovery pathway for service users with forensic histories or significant risk profiles. The post-holder will take on the role of psychologist, providing psychological assessments as well as individual and group interventions to service users presenting with a range of complex risk behaviours and forensic needs.
Main duties of the job
The role sits within the wider Forensic Psychological Services Department which comprises clinical, counselling and forensic psychologists, trainee psychologists, assistant psychologists and psychology undergraduate placement students. EPUT's Secure Services operate across Essex, Bedfordshire and Luton. Video conferencing facilities between sites are also used to assist departmental communication.
Working for our organisation
BENEFITS AND CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
- Excellent Training and CPD opportunities for career development
- Season Ticket Loans
- NHS discounts for staff
- Buying and Selling annual leave scheme
- The opportunity to work bank shifts and expand knowledge and experience in other areas
- Salary Sacrifice schemes including lease cars and Cycle to Work
Day One Flexible Employer, the Trust supports and actively encourages flexible working for all employees. We offer many options and you are encouraged to ask the recruiting manager what is possible for this role. If appointed, you will have the opportunity for a flexible working request from the first day of your employment.
As well as applicants from the UK, we encourage overseas candidates to apply for this role. We welcome diversity within our organisation. We can offer guidance for candidates coming from overseas about settling into working in the UK and we have a programme to provide a ‘buddy’ for you, i.e. a member of the Psychological Services Directorate who has also emigrated to join us at EPUT and can guide you through as you settle into your new home. We understand that, as an overseas candidate, you will have gone through excellent training in your country of origin and we encourage you to join us.
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES CLINICAL
- To provide specialist psychological assessments of inpatients on the forensic wards 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 clients and others involved in the client’s The post- holder will also be responsible for the safe use of any equipment used during assessments (e.g. test batteries).
- To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s mental health problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems and employing evidence based
- To be responsible for implementing a range of highly specialised psychological interventions for people on the forensic unit; families and groups, within and across teams, adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses.
- To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking into account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors concerning historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual, family or group.
Please see full 'Job Description' and 'Person Specification' attachments for full details of the role.
Person specification
Education/Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Professional training in psychology
- Postgraduate training including specifically models of psychopathology, clinical psychometrics and neuropsychology, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology as accredited by HCPC.
- HCPC Registered as practitioner psychologist
- Knowledge of models of forensic psychology, including theories and models of offending, risk assessment (including Structured Professional Judgement approaches), and knowledge of theories of offence related therapy
Skills/experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, 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 providing teaching and training to mental health staff around topics pertinent to working with offenders and/or adults with learning disabilities.
- Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
- Experience in the administration and interpretation of Structured Professional Judgement risk assessments (including the HCR-20, RSVP and SARA), as
Desirable criteria
- Experience of providing clinical supervision to staff carrying out group and individual work with forensic mental health or forensic learning disability patients.
- Experience of initiating and taking an active role in service-development
Personal
Essential criteria
- The ability to create and maintain effective relationships within the clinical team and with a range of professionals.
- Team Player, inspirational to others, ability to negotiate ‘win win’ situations.
- Ability to work independently
- Confident and approachable.
Desirable criteria
- Personal experience of mental health problems.
Employer certification / accreditation badges
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.
Documents to download
Further details / informal visits contact
- Name
- Debra Easton
- Job title
- Principal & Lead Clinical Psychologist
- Email address
- [email protected]
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