Clinical/Forensic Psychologist

at  Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

To provide psychological support to Probation Officers within dedicated local delivery units (LDU) and approved premises in their management of high risk offenders identified as presenting with behaviour consistent with a personality disorder diagnosis. To work alongside probation colleagues to enhance the assessment and supervision of offenders and to support the implementation of the Personality Disordered Offender Pathway, aligned to the National Offender Personality Disorder Strategy.
To provide psychological support to The Probation service in their management of high risk offenders identified as presenting with behaviour consistent with a personality disorder diagnosis. To work alongside probation colleagues to enhance the assessment and supervision of offenders and to support the implementation of the Personality Disordered Offender Pathway, aligned to the National Offender Personality Disorder Strategy.
The role will involve training and workforce development through consultation and training to Offender Managers and Offender Management Teams to enable an understanding of the psychological aspects of a client’s risk and the development of psychologically informed formulations and risk management plans. The post holder will also maintain a small caseload providing direct therapeutic intervention with service users with complex mental health needs and offending histories within the Medium Secure Unit
The post will be within Mersey care NHS Trust Secure Division Offender Personality Disorder Service/enhanced care service. The post holder will operate within professional guidelines and within the overall framework of the LDU’s policies and procedures. The post holder will contribute to the operational management group and contribute to service audit and governance processes.
Mersey Care is one of the largest trusts providing physical health and mental health services in the North West, serving more than 1.4 million people across our region and are also commissioned for services that cover the North West, North Wales and the Midlands.
We offer specialist inpatient and community services that support physical and mental health and specialist inpatient mental health, learning disability, addiction and brain injury services. Mersey Care is one of only three trusts in the UK that offer high secure mental health facilities.
At the heart of all we do is our commitment to ‘perfect care’ – care that is safe, effective, positively experienced, timely, equitable and efficient. We support our staff to do the best job they can and work alongside service users, their families, and carers to design and develop future services together. We’re currently delivering a programme of organisational and service transformation to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so.
Flexible working requests will be considered for all roles.
Clinical
1.1 To provide specialist psychological consultation and formulation to offender managers to support them in the management and supervision of and intervention with offenders. To provide specialist psychological assessment of clients based on the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data from a variety of sources. This will include 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.
1.2 To formulate and implement plans for the formal psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s psychological problems, based upon an appropriate conceptual framework of the client’s problems, employing methods based upon evidence of efficacy. The appropriate assessment of risk and provision for its safe management is a key aspect of the work to be undertaken by the post holder.
1.3 To be responsible for implementing a range of psychological interventions therapy for individuals, while adjusting and refining psychological formulations drawing upon different explanatory models and maintaining a number of provisional hypotheses where appropriate.
1.4 To exercise autonomous professional responsibility for the assessment, treatment and discharge of clients whose problems are managed by psychologically based standard care plans.
1.5 To develop and implement specialist psychological interventions, integrated into a multidisciplinary effective care coordination process.
1.6 To provide specialist psychological advice, guidance and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to clients’ formulation, diagnosis and treatment plans, including risk formulation and risk management
1.7 To contribute directly and indirectly to a psychologically based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients.
1.8 To develop skills in and undertake risk assessment and risk management for individual clients and to provide advice, both general and specialist, to other professions on psychological aspects of risk assessment and risk management.
1.9 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 multidisciplinary care.
2. Teaching, Training and Supervision
2.1 In common with all Clinical Psychologists, to receive regular supervision and management from senior professional colleagues.
2.2 To continue to gain wider post qualification experience of Clinical in line with BPS requirements.
2.3 To develop skills in the area of professional post-graduate teaching and training and to provide supervision to other staff’s psychological work, e.g. staff from other designations, as appropriate.
2.4 Provides clinical supervision to less experienced psychology staff and members of the wider multidisciplinary team.
3. Management, Recruitment and Service Development
3.1 To contribute to the development, evaluation and monitoring of the team’s operational policies and services, through the deployment of professional skills in research, service evaluation and audit.
3.2 To advise both service and professional management on those aspects of the service where psychological and/or organisational matters need addressing.
4. Research and Service Evaluation
4.1 To utilise theory, evidence-based literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work and work with other team members.
4.2 To undertake appropriate research as agreed with the line manager and provide research advice to other team colleagues.
4.3 To undertake project management, including complex audit and service evaluation, with colleagues within the service to develop service provision as appropriate

Please refer the Job description for details