Job summary
The Fen's is an innovative and challenging service forindividualswith chronic histories of traumawho are located in a male high-risk prison.
Our treatment draws on attachment theory and incorporates sensorimotor psychotherapy and schema focused therapy, along with a range of short-term interventions such as EMDR, CBT, CAT etc.Through a combination of individual and group therapies, patients are given opportunities to heal from trauma and neglect, improve wellbeing and reduce risk.
We will support you in broadening your therapeutic skills,management,and working to achieveorganisationalchange in a complex system. There are opportunities to further your research interests through our links withUniversities.
The role is a permanent, full-time position with scope to complete some work from home .
You will join our diverse clinical team with a rich range of clinical and forensic experience.
"I wanted to change, I was crying out to change. You know, it was a trust element....letting them see me warts and that was the hard thing. Breaking down crying...getting the stuff out I needed to. I grew from I don't like myself, how can anyone else like myself. How can I move on if I don't forgive myself... I've got to give myself a chance." Current service user
Main duties of the job
To provide a highly specialist psychological therapy service to patient(s), referred to the Fens Service and ensure the systematic provision of a high-quality specialist psychology service as agreed with commissioners and CPFT.
To supervise and support the psychological assessment and therapy provided by specialist psychologists and other clinical members of the team who provide psychologically based care and treatment.
To support the Clinical Lead who is responsible for the treatment programme in the development of highly specialised programmes of care and to provide highly specialised advice to non-psychological staff working directly with the patients.
To take responsibility for project work within a specified domain of the Fens service under the line management of one of the consultant Psychologist leads. To contribute to the development and management of the teaching and training programme for staff on the Fens service.
About us
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a health and social care organisation dedicated to providing high-quality care with compassion to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we care for, as well as supporting andempowering them to lead a fulfilling life.
Our clinical teams deliver many NHS services, not only via inpatient and primary care settings, but also within the community. These services include children's, adult and older people's mental health, forensic and specialist mental health, learning disabilities, primary care and liaison psychiatry, substance misuse, social care, research and development.
To achieve our goal, we look to recruit high-calibre candidates who share our vision and values. As an equal opportunities employer, we encourage applications from all sectors of the community, particularly from under-represented groups including people with long term conditions and members of our ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ communities.
For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at
Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, unfortunately, your application form will be rejected from the process.
Job description
Job responsibilities
Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities
1. To develop psychological formulations of presenting problems; emotional, cognitive and behavioural. In particular to use specialist knowledge in relation to offending behaviour, trauma and to develop psychological formulations of the connection between a persons personality psychopathology and the risk they pose to others.
2. 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, carers or group.
3. To incorporate the results of individual assessments, including neuropsychological assessment, into the formulations and treatment and care plans for the patient(s). To be able to articulate these formulations to other members of the Multi-Disciplinary Team including non-clinical staff using the highest level of interpersonal and communication skills at a level which is accessible to all.
4. Within a cognitive interpersonal framework develop plans for the formal psychological individual treatment/formulation and/or management of a service users mental health and behavioural problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of these problems, and employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy, across the full range of care settings.
5. To provide management, co-ordination and delivery in conjunction with the Clinical Lead, Treatment Leads, and partnership agencies, on the development of new innovative services within the Fens and wider prison. This will include the application of adjunctive and alternative therapies both within assessment and treatment provisions within the wider Fens services, supporting the psycho-social environment and developing appropriate evaluation methodologies and research protocols.
6. To ensure that all members of the clinical and operational team have access to a psychologically based framework for understanding and care of clients of the service, through the provision of advice and consultation and the dissemination of psychological research and theory.
7. To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically-based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all service users in the OPDP Fens services, across all settings and agencies serving the patient group, including delivery of service user collaboration and/or co-production.
8. To take a leading role within the Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings providing direct input to those meetings and communicating information on psychological assessments, formulations and interventions undertaken by other Psychologists/Psychotherapists within the OPDP Fens service.
9. To contribute to the wider OPDP services by sharing information with other sites both through Fens progression and continuity of care pathway services for service users entering and leaving high secure services in line with agreed data sharing protocols.
10. To provide highly specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other partnership professionals contributing directly to clients formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan.
11. To undertake actuarial and clinical tools assessments, in addition to highly specialist knowledge and expertise to inform ongoing risk assessment and risk management for individual service users and to provide advice to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment.
12. To take a lead in working in partnership with other disciplines to help to establish and maintain Multi-Disciplinary Team working and Care Programme Approach, including. acting as care co-ordinator in all that is required of this role.
13. To communicate throughout all service delivery elements in a highly skilled and sensitive manner to others ( service users family, carers), as appropriate, information that may be contentious or highly distressing concerning the formulation and treatment plans of service users under their care in line with agreed data sharing protocols.
14. To produce reports on service users, in a timely manner, that convey the key findings of psychological assessment and formulation and treatment outcome in a way that does justice to the complexity of the problems described, but that are understandable to the recipients of the reports, including clients and referrers.
15. To attend and/chair OPDP meetings including but not limited to: MDT meetings, Prisoner Management meeting, programmes and governance meetings. Meetings will include partnership agencies and service user representatives.
16. To contribute to HMPPS process of reviews of service users, providing written or verbal reports as appropriate to the specific reviews. Such reviews include those that relate to suicidal behaviour (ACCT reviews), safeguarding, security status and sentence planning.
17. To work in partnership with other agencies and to maintain links with statutory and non-statutory and primary care agencies as appropriate.
18. To collect and communicate specific information as required by the commissioners responsible for the OPDP services.
Person Specification
Education / Qualifications
Essential
19. Doctoral level training in an applied psychology or master's level qualification registration; to include, models of lifespan developmental psychology, psychopathology and clinical psychometrics in addition to two or more distinct therapies.
20. Registered as a Practitioner Psychologist with HCPC
21. Specialist psychological therapy training focussed on treatment of trauma and/ personality disorders eg, Schema training, EMDR, CAT,
Desirable
22. Undertaken Post graduate Psychological training relevant to the advertised post ( Personality Disorder training, Risk Assessment training, Training with respect to Interventions for clients with Personality Disorders and/ or those who pose a risk of harm to others.
Experience
Essential
23. Experience of assessing and treating clients across a range of forensic/secure setting and/ or community personality disorder service
24. Experience of work within a Multi-Disciplinary Team.
25. Experience of the application of Psychology within different contexts.
26. Able to demonstrate further specialist training/experience through having received a minimum of 50 hours professional supervision.
Skills & Abilities
Essential
27. Skills to impart psychological knowledge and approaches with non-psychology colleagues, taking an empowering, rather than an instructive stance.
28. Ability to identify and employ mechanisms of clinical governance.
Knowledge & Understanding
Essential
29. High level of knowledge of the theory and practice of at least two specialised psychological therapies related to this client group, using specific psychological models such as Schema, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, DBT, MBT, CAT and CBT for Personality Disorders
30. Well-developed knowledge and treatment of complex trauma and/or PD as displayed in recent research or conference paper or book chapter.
Desirable
31. Doctoral level knowledge of research design and methodology, as practised within the field of psychology.
32. Good understanding of other professionals' theoretical perspectives of this service user group, in addition to appreciation of their differing experiences of working with these clients.
Other
Essential
33. Interpersonally calm and able to defuse difficult, volatile situations.