Specialist Psychological Therapist (Clin / Foren Psych. / Couns / Other)

The Swaleside Pathways team is a warm & welcoming team in an exciting, award winning service. We offer excellent opportunities for engaging in fascinating clinical work as well as excellent training, accreditation and career development opportunities.
We work jointly with operational colleagues in HMP Swaleside with male high risk offenders who screen into the OPD pathway (Offender 'Personality disorder'). The service aims to assess, understand and provide therapeutic intervention for men presenting with complex and challenging difficulties. We achieved the 2023 Health Service Journal Award for our work on Diversity, our wing has achieved 'Enabling Environment' status and we are working towards the 'Trauma Informed' One Small Thing Award. There is active service user involvement and a commitment to fairness and equality.
This is an exciting opportunity for a clinical, forensic psychologist, or other psychological therapist who is interested in understanding and working with complexity and wishes to further develop their clinical skills in therapeutic approaches. All recruits will receive training, supervision and support to gain accreditation in specific therapeutic domains (Schema/ MBT/ EMDR/ other) and to develop their practice.
The post holder will be part of the huge Oxleas Forensic Psychological Therapies Team which offers regular excellent opportunities for training, peer supervision, skill development, networking and career progression., To provide a qualified specialist psychological service to complex offenders who screen into the OPD Pathway services in HMP Swaleside, providing specialist psychological assessment and therapy at the same time as offering advice and consultation on offender psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues and to other, non-professional carers, working autonomously with professional guidelines and the overall framework of the Oxleas policies and procedures.
Specifically, to work alongside prison, probation and psychology colleagues in the provision of OPD services within HMP Swaleside, as funded by Dept of Health and Ministry of Justice. To include assessments and formulation, therapeutic interventions, joint-working with prison staff, case management, advice, consultation and training. Responsibility for collaborating with an evaluation of the service.
To specialise in a therapy area and work towards gaining accreditation in that area., + To provide specialist psychological assessments of clients referred to the team 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, family members and others involved in the client's care.
+ 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 methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
+ To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions for individuals and groups, within the team.
+ 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.
+ To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically-based care plans.
+ To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients' formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
+ To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically-based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings and agencies.
+ To undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
+ To act as case holding clinician, where appropriate, taking responsibility for initiating planning and review of care plans including clients, their carers, referring agents and others involved the network of care.
+ To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, information concerning the assessment, formulation and treatment plans of clients under their care and to monitor progress during the course of both uni- and multi-disciplinary 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).
We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that welcomes and supports individuals of all abilities. Remember, if you meet the minimum criteria for this role and you have a disability, you can be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme - Please ensure you select this on your application form. We would encourage you to be open about your needs so we can work with you to design a comfortable and accessible interview experience. Any information you provide regarding a disability or a need for adjustments will be treated in confidence and will only be shared with colleagues who are supporting this request.
If you require any adjustments to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know by adding the relevant details when scheduling your preferred interview date and time. Please feel free to contact the appointing manager to discuss your needs.

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