Job summary
- Main area
- Adult Community Mental Health Services
- Grade
- Band 7
- Contract
- Permanent: Preceptorship post Band 7-8a
- Hours
- Full time - 37.5 hours per week
- Job ref
- 277-7375993-VERN
- Employer
- Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
- Employer type
- NHS
- Site
- HMP The Verne
- Town
- Portland
- Salary
- £47,810 - £54,710 pa inc
- Salary period
- Yearly
- Closing
- 13/08/2025 23:59
Employer heading
Clinical/Forensic/Counselling Psychologist/Psychological Therapist
Band 7
Job overview
This is an excellent opportunity for a Psychologist or Psychological Therapist to join our team of diverse, talented healthcare professionals to deliver care that is not only efficient but deeply centred on the patient.
Our healthcare teams have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patient’s future resettlement back into the community. Our Psychological Therapies department is an unusually large, long established and nationally well regarded specialty. Psychologists are highly valued within the trust and occupy a variety of service-wide leadership roles. The Psychological Therapies team is warm and friendly, whilst also being dynamic and innovative.
Join us in a stimulating role where we are seeking a dynamic and passionate psychologist who has the skills required to work within a trauma-informed care service
**Important Sponsorship Information for this post: We are currently unable to offer a certificate of sponsorship for this post.**
Main duties of the job
This post is based at HMP The Verne where you will work within the Mental Health team, consisting of psychological therapists and multi-professional mental health colleagues to embed psychologically informed care in the service.
You will provide a specialist psychological therapies service to service users in emotional distress, providing specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on clients’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously with professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Trust’s policies and procedures.
You will promote an environment in which therapeutic relationships facilitate safety and change, by offering psychological perspectives and emotional support to nursing teams, and promoting psychological thinking in teams. You should have interests in working with personality difficulties and complex trauma, including providing direct psychological assessments and interventions, and working in mutli- disciplinary and multi-agency contexts.
You will supervise and manage assistant psychologists, supervise psychological interventions delivered by MDT colleagues, and supervise psychology students and doctoral trainees.
We welcome applicants who are newly qualified or are approaching qualification who are enthusiastic and dedicated to working in this field, with or without prior experience in secure or forensic services.
Working for our organisation
Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. Our services include community health care such as district nursing and speech and language therapy, care for people with learning disabilities and mental health care such as psychiatry, nursing and therapies. Our multidisciplinary teams look after people of all ages and we work in close partnership with other parts of the NHS, local councils and the voluntary sector and through our new provider collaboratives. Our 4,300 members of staff work in many different settings including hospitals, clinics, prisons, secure hospitals, children’s centres, schools and people’s homes.
We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England. In London we operate within the Boroughs of Bexley, Bromley Greenwich and into Kent. We manage hospital sites including Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup and Memorial Hospital, Woolwich, as well as the Bracton Centre, our medium secure unit for people with mental health needs. We are the largest NHS provider of prison health services providing healthcare to prisons within Devon, Dorset, Bristol, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, Kent and South London. We are proud of the care we provide and our people.
Our purpose is to improve lives by providing the best possible care to our patients and their families. This is strengthened by our new values:
- We’re Kind
- We’re Fair
- We Listen
- We Care
Detailed job description and main responsibilities
Key Task and Responsibilities
- To travel to clinical venues, training activities and meetings as appropriate and across the Trust when required.
- To be aware of risk relating to aggressive and challenging behaviour amongst the client group, and follow Trust policies relating to its management.
- To respond appropriately and professionally to emotionally distressing situations of people in distress or in crisis and who may be abusive and to support others involved in such situations.
- To work flexibly which may include offering some regular commitment to late clinics or weekend working, within the overall Job Plan.
- To be proficient in the use of IT for purposes such as email, electronic calendar, intranet, video calls and electronic clinical records.
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
- Attend and contribute to directorate level meetings and forums, as directed.
- Contribute to the delivery of accessible and acceptable services to diverse communities.
Clinical
- 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.
- 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).
Person specification
Education & Qualifications
Essential criteria
- Entry-level qualification in applied psychological therapy/mental health/social welfare profession or equivalent and demonstrable practice in this field (ie professional Doctorate, or combination of MSc plus PG Diploma level/supervised practice/additional training)
- Additional training beyond entry-level qualification in a specialised area of psychological practice (through formal post-qualification training (PG Diploma or equivalent), OR a combination of specialist short courses and/an evidenced portfolio of supervised practice–based learning in a specialist area of clinical psychological therapy practice, assessed by a registered body and/or an experienced clinical supervisor to be of equal level to a Postgraduate Diploma or higher
- Registered with professional body or regulatory body as appropriate to psychological therapy discipline ie HCPC/UKCP/BACP/BABCP.
Desirable criteria
- Completed training course in clinical supervision
- Training or qualifications in research methodology, staff training and/or other fields of applied psychology.
Experience
Essential criteria
- Experience of specialist psychological assessment and treatment of adult clients with a range of psychological needs of a complex nature under supervision
- Experience working with and addressing issues of diversity, including experience of working within a multicultural framework.
- Experience of maintaining a high degree of professionalism in the face of highly emotive and distressing problems, verbal abuse and the threat of physical abuse.
Desirable criteria
- Experience in forensic / secure settings
- Experience of providing teaching and training
Skills
Essential criteria
- Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management frequently requiring sustained and intense concentration
- Skills in providing consultation to other professional and non-professional groups.
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
- Kelly Southgate
- Job title
- Psychological Therapies Lead
- Email address
- [email protected]
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