IIRMS Clinical Lead Principal Psychologist

at  Sussex Partnership NHS FoundationTrust

Do you thrive on team work, providing collaborative complex formulations and guiding clinical work through a relational approach?
The Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway is a jointly commissioned initiative by NHS England and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, that aims to provide a pathway of psychologically informed services for a highly complex and challenging offender group who are likely to have severe personality difficulties and who pose a high risk of harm or a high risk of reoffending in a harmful way.
Sussex Chiron Intensive Intervention & Risk Management Service (IIRMS) works directly with the most complex and high risk individuals, supporting their release into the community from prison. You will lead this county-wide, dynamic service , providing professional and clinical leadership to a dedicated and skilled multi-disciplinary and multi-agency team. The service provides individual psychologically-informed support to men and women before they are released from prison and for up to 18 months post-release.

This is an excellent opportunity to develop your experience of working in partnership with another organisation. As well as overseeing the work of assistant psychologists, an occupational therapist, a mental health specialist practitioner and Probation Service colleagues, you will also work closely and collaboratively with regional senior probation officers, and KSS provider collaborative colleagues in similar posts.

• To clinically lead the Sussex Chiron Intensive Intervention Risk Management Service and support the operational and strategic aims of the service
• To work as a member of the Intensive Intervention Risk Management Service, providing a high quality, specialist applied psychology service to clients, their families or carers, where there are highly complex presentations.
• In addition to be responsible for the supervision and governance of the staff team, which consists of SPFT employees and Probation employees
• To support and develop psychological practice within the team through consultation, supervision, formulation and training.

To ensure accurate record keeping for the purposes of evaluation and monitoring and continuity of service provision, and communication of risk concerns
The Sussex Intensive Intervention Risk Management Service are a small, cohesive team consisting of SPFT and Probation staff working together to deliver an effective and impactful service which supports those individuals who are complex and present as high risk of harm. This is a challenging yet rewarding service to work in and will give you a unique experience of joint delivery of a specially commissioned service.
This role is being offered as 0.6 FTE.
You will be an applied psychologist with a core professional qualification recognised by the HCPC, and significant experience of working at a Senior Practitioner Psychologist level or similar, preferably in a service working with people with offending histories and / or high risk / challenging behaviours and presentations and complex personality challenges. We welcome applications from psychologists with experience of working in HMPPS as well as (forensic) mental health services. As this is a fixed term position, you will require a good understanding of the criminal justice system and theoretical models underpinning OPD including attachment theory, the Good Lives Model and desistance theory.
You will be able to demonstrate excellent consultation, communication and collaboration skills, and a successful / effective approach when working with a range of stakeholders / agencies within Health and Criminal Justice contexts. You will also be able to demonstrate experience in leadership roles, and will be an effective teacher, trainer and supervisor to the staff you lead and support.
See Attached JD and PS for full details of role
For further information about this role or to arrange an informal visit, please contact

Please refer the Job description for details