Psychologist/Psychological Therapist

Psychologist/Psychological Therapist, Band 7
Permanent - Full Time - 37.5 hours per week

The post is based at HMP Wandsworth where you will work with a team of psychological therapists and multi-professional mental health colleagues to embed psychologically informed care in the prison.

You should have interests in working with complex trauma where there is associated risk, including providing direct psychological assessments and interventions and working in multi-disciplinary and multi-agency contexts mental health disciplines and with other agencies.

You will work to the Trust’s vision and values, and focus on enabling all staff, service users and carers from diverse backgrounds to flourish by working to create a psychologically safe environment. 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 operational teams.

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.

The role is dynamic, with clinical tasks, staff support, supervisory roles and non-clinical responsibilities carried out with the support of the psychology leadership. The postholder will be able to demonstrate a keen interest in working with people who have led chaotic lives and who present with complex mental health needs and forensic histories.

The postholder will supervise pre-qualified psychological therapists including assistant psychologists, students and trainees.

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

Please kindly refer to the attached job description and person specification for detailed information about the psychological therapist role.