Art Psychotherapist- HMP Downview OPD Service

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; Sutton; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A healthcare provider based in Sutton is seeking an experienced Arts Psychotherapist to join its Offender Personality Disorder Team at HMP Downview. This role involves delivering Modified Forensic Dialectic Behavioural Therapy, developing group therapy, and providing clinical supervision. Candidates must hold an accredited degree in art psychotherapy and have experience with clients exhibiting challenging behaviours. The position offers comprehensive support from a multidisciplinary team and opportunities for professional development.

Benefits

Free use of onsite leisure facilities

Free parking for staff

Regular supervision and support for career progression

Qualifications

• Post-qualification experience of autonomous working with relevant client groups, both in groups and individually.
• Experience of working with people with disturbed and challenging behaviour.
• Substantial experience of personal psychotherapy.

Responsibilities

• Deliver Modified Forensic Dialectic Behavioural Therapy to women in the OPD pathway.
• Support and facilitate individual sessions and therapeutic groups.
• Develop and apply individual formulations for patients.

Skills

High standard of art making

Ability to work with complex needs

High standard of verbal communication skills

Computer literacy

Ability to assess risk

Education

Good honours degree in art or relevant subject

MA/MSc or equivalent in art psychotherapy

Registered with the HCPC as an art psychotherapist

Job description

Job Overview

Are you interested in working with personality disorder and assisting teams to support women with complex needs? We are seeking an Arts Psychotherapist to join our ‘Options’ Offender Personality Disorder Team at HMP Downview (a female prison based in Sutton, Surrey). Options is a treatment and support service running primarily modified forensic DBT Programmes, offering treatment for service users who have been identified on the PD Pathway. Additionally, we offer stability outreach work for those in crisis, social creative groups and 1:1 trauma processing therapy. To staff we offer training, consultation and formulation services primarily to our probation and prison colleagues who work alongside us to support and progress women safely through their sentence plan, in preparation for their move into the community.

Main duties of the job

• To deliver Modified Forensic Dialectic Behavioural Therapy to women screened into the OPD pathway, this will include individual and group-based treatment. To attend and take part in weekly DBT consultation meetings and adhere to DBT principles.
• To support and deliver in the development of therapy within the Options service and co-facilitate social creative sessions, gender specific specialist arts psychotherapies service for adults, adapting your approach to ensure inclusion of those who are hard to engage owing to complex needs such as current risk or self-harm and/or violence, cognitive difficulties, emotional withdrawal and psychological disturbance.
• To undertake delivery of individual and group therapy including social creative sessions, outreach support and stabilisation with prisoners at HMP Downview as directed.
• To develop individual formulations and applying theoretical models of the psychology of mental health and personality disorder and offending, to observed behaviour, cognitive, emotional and interpersonal patterns, for service users who present with complex clinical needs.
• To provide clinical supervision to the team’s psychological therapists, Assistant Psychologists and trainees and other members of the team when appropriate.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures.

Working for our organisation

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust is a Top Employer Award Winner and works in partnership to provide responsive and dependable primary care, mental health, intellectual disability and substance misuse services to the diverse and culturally rich communities we serve.

By joining CNWL’s Health & Justice Directorate you will be joining a large department of psychologists and psychological therapists that provide a variety of mental health and OPD services across prisons, the youth estate, secure hospitals and the community. Our staff are dynamic and welcoming and the networking and CPD opportunities are central to our services ethos. We have active research forums and promote our services and work through academic and clinical forums. All staff receive regular supervision and are supported with career aspirations and progression. All of our sites in Surrey offer free use of the onsite leisure facilities and free parking for staff.

Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities

• To deliver Modified Forensic Dialectic Behavioural Therapy to women screened into the OPD pathway, this will include individual and group based treatment. To attend and take part in weekly DBT consultation meetings and adhere to DBT principles.
• To support and deliver in the development of therapy within the Options service and co-facilitate social creative sessions, gender specific specialist arts psychotherapies service for adults, adapting your approach to ensure inclusion of those who are hard to engage owing to complex needs such as current risk or self harm and/or violence, cognitive difficulties, emotional withdrawal and psychological disturbance.
• To asses each patient’s suitability for arts psychotherapy and to ascertain from the ongoing evaluation / review their ego strength and tolerance of self and others, while working towards the agreed aims of therapy.
• To assess risk, manage and adopt appropriate measures to maintain a safe and therapeutically sensitive environment for all when faced with challenging behaviour, for example verbal abuse, deliberate self-harm, violence, aggression or threatening behaviour. To contribute to the overall team risk assessment.
• To provide a service to the women within the OPD service to help them adapt to their environment and minimise distress, deterioration and actual and / or perceived threat they pose to themselves and others around them.
• To contribute specialist knowledge from arts psychotherapy assessment and treatment to the overall formulation and care plans for each patient through contribution to formulation meetings, reviews, clinical meetings and by providing written summaries.
• To develop and facilitate a range of individual sessions and therapeutic groups within the Options treatment and outreach model.
• To work with patients to understand the content and context of their communication using the arts as a focus.
• To contribute to training and support for custodial colleagues.
• To support and participate fully in the work of the multidisciplinary team, including attending team meetings and reflective practice.
• To maintain accurate patient records on SystmOne including clinical record keeping, specialist reports, data-collection and CPA in accordance with relevant national and trust policies.
• To undertake ongoing evaluation of patients’ progress and to manage therapy endings and follow up.
• To contribute to joint assessments and clinical reviews on patients with members of the multidisciplinary team. To write reports and contribute to the writing of reports as required by MDT processes, including as required reviews, Safeguarding meetings and Public Protection meetings.
• To actively contribute to a culture of reflective practice within the team and beyond, taking a lead in modelling self-reflection and self-awareness in emotionally challenging situations. This could be through co-facilitation of groups or in staff development forums.
• To support team members from other disciplines in processing the emotional impact of the work through applying skills and knowledge from own personal psychotherapy and drawing on clinical experience and theoretical knowledge to highlight and not collude with potentially destructive mechanisms of defence.
• To maintain a high degree of professionalism at all times particularly as the clinical work will frequently involve working alone with service users for substantial periods individually and in groups where behaviour might be uninhibited and self care poor.
• To use sound judgement and interpretative skills to work with the client to understand the content of their engagement and communications and to assess risk.
• To respond appropriately to situations when there is a threat of physical violence to self or others including florid psychotic symptoms, self-harm and aggressive or threatening behaviour.
• To carry out this work under the supervision and guidance of a senior clinician of the same discipline, working closely with therapeutically trained professionals and other team members.
• To ensure own ethical practice by working within one’s Professional Association’s code of ethics and guidelines for clinical practice and abiding by the Health Care Professions Council’s standards of proficiency and conduct and the Trust’s Confidentiality policies.

Person specification

Education And Qualifications

Essential criteria

• Good honours degree in art or relevant subject, equivalent performing/work experience
• MA/MSc or equivalent in art psychotherapy
• Registered with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) as an art psychotherapist

Desirable criteria

• Other related academic qualifications
• Clinical supervision training
• Advanced keyboard skills
• Training in breakaway/de‑escalation techniques
• Culture awareness training

Previous Experience

Essential criteria

• Post‑qualification experience of autonomous working with a relevant client group both in groups and individually
• Experience of working with people with disturbed and challenging behaviour.
• Substantial experience of personal psychotherapy.
• Experience of assessing patients for an arts psychotherapy and making recommendations to a MDT.

Desirable criteria

• Being Sole Arts Therapist in a MDT
• Experience of negotiating space/therapeutic boundaries in a difficult context
• Evidence of participation in research
• Experience of supervising arts psychotherapists (trainee or qualified).
• Experience of using a trauma informed approach.
• Lived experience of mental health Issues.
• Experience of working in secure settings, either prison or secure hospitals.
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Skills & Knowledge

Essential criteria

• High standard of art making and commitment to maintaining skills.
• Skills in planning, organising and prioritising own workload and in working without the involvement of the team in a particular case Knowledge of and skills in assessing patients for arts psychotherapy balancing risk with client needs and service priorities.
• Knowledge of evidence based practice, clinical governance and related knowledge for research and audit.
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to relevant field/s and the full range of client groups
• Knowledge of current forensic arts psychotherapies research and theories and skills in applying arts psychotherapy theories to work with individuals, groups and organisation
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by HCPC.
• Skills in applying art therapy theories to work with individuals, groups and organisation
• Ability to work with people with complex needs e.g. aggressive / unstable / suicidal patients, including those with personality disorder or a mixed diagnosis.
• Ability to work with non‑verbal patients or patients for whom using English is a major difficulty which could be for cultural reasons, or due to their mental state.
• High standard of verbal communication skills including the ability to provide concise, clear and relevant feedback to a ward round/team meeting
• Computer literacy and high standard of documented communication skills including the ability to produce clear typed reports detailing progress of therapy, selecting relevant information from sessions and expressing analytical detail without bias.
• Ability to treat service users with respect and dignity at all times, adopting a culturally sensitive approach, which considers the needs of the whole person.
• Ability to build constructive relationships with warmth and empathy, using good communication skills

Desirable criteria

• Experience of working with multi-disciplinary teams
• Commitment to and enthusiasm for further training opportunities and CPD
• Trained to use SystmOne
• Experienced user of P‑NOMIS

Attitudes, aptitudes personal characteristics

Essential criteria

• Ability to assess risk and be able to work face to face with acutely unwell patients without other staff nearby.
• High degree of self awareness, Arts Therapy training and post‑qualifying supervision
• Ability to work with trauma and contain emotional impact through clinical supervision and team support systems.
• Ability to work with victim/perpetrators who may have distressing personal histories without colluding or over‑identifying.
• Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and ability to ‘hold’ the stress of others
• Ability to adapt to physical environment when dedicated therapy rooms are not available e.g. transporting art materials / equipment / art instruments etc and willingness to manipulate furniture to set up room (within Health and Safety parameters)

Desirable criteria

• Fluent in an additional language
• Ability to learn from experience
• Able to provide services in a variety of environments as meets the needs of clients
• Post qualification personal psychotherapy

Other

Essential criteria

• Ability to work to professional guidelines.
• Must be capable of working autonomously with traumatised, severely disturbed, aggressive and/or distressed people for prolonged periods individually and in groups.
• Ability to travel between sites
• The post holder must have the ability to understand and implement the equal opportunities policy at a level appropriate to the job.
• Ability to promote anti‑discriminatory and anti‑racist practices.
• Ability to promote and work in line with the working model of a 7 day a week service

Desirable criteria

• Record of having published in either peer reviewed or academic professional journals and/or books.
• Must demonstrate ability to support the development of the profession through participation in professional bodies and activities.