Assistant Psychologist

Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust; Bristol; On-site; GBP 25,000 - 35,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking NHS organization as an Assistant Psychologist at HMP Bristol, where you will play a crucial role in enhancing the psychological care of offenders. This position offers the chance to work within a compassionate and knowledgeable team dedicated to improving the mental health and well-being of individuals in a prison setting. You will be involved in psychological assessments, therapy services, and the development of care plans under the supervision of qualified professionals. If you are passionate about making a positive impact in the lives of those in challenging circumstances, this is an exciting opportunity to develop your career in offender healthcare.

Benefits

NHS Pension

Career Development Opportunities

Supportive Work Environment

Qualifications

• A 2.2 honours degree or higher in psychology is required.
• Must be entitled to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society.

Responsibilities

• Support psychological care of offenders, conducting assessments and interventions.
• Assist in the development of care plans and therapeutic groups.

Skills

Communication Skills

Psychological Knowledge Application

Interest in Forensic Settings

Education

Honours Degree in Psychology

Graduate Membership of British Psychological Society

Job description

Are you ready to unlock your potential within a challenging, creative and fast paced work environment? Do you want to escape your current job role and work with people to build positive and productive lives, whatever their past? Now is the time to breakinto offender healthcare and develop your career.

We are currently expanding recruitment and are looking for a compassionate, knowledgeable and motivated Assistant Psychologist to join our friendly team at HMP Bristol.

Our healthcare team have a real impact on promoting health and well-being to those in prison and we pride ourselves on using skills and strategies that instil hope for patients' future resettlement back into the community. We directly deliver Mental Health, Physical Health, Pharmacy and Clinical Substance Misuse in an integrated healthcare delivery model to provide effective and responsive care to improve wellbeing and support better outcomes in the future.

As part of our mental health team, you will enjoy all the benefits of NHS AfC employment (including pension) with the opportunity to work within a forward-thinking service, which encourages career and personal development for all staff to increase their clinical and interpersonal skills.

Main duties of the job

As an Assistant Psychologist at HMP Bristol, you will be supporting and enhancing the professional psychological care of offenders within the service. This will include providing psychological assessment and psychological interventions under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, working independently according to a plan agreed with the qualified psychologist and within the overall framework of the team’s policies and procedures, and assisting in clinically related administration, conducting audits, collecting statistics, and developing audit and/or research projects, and teaching.

Specifically, you will provide psychological therapy services to service users residing in HMP Bristol. The assistant psychologist will be part of the integrated mental health team within the prisons, which provide a range of psychological services from self-help literature to individual and group therapies. The integrated mental health team works within a trauma-informed care model which includes supporting prison colleagues by providing teaching, training and consultation.

Working for our organisation

Oxleas offers a wide range of NHS healthcare services to people in community and secure environment settings. 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.

Our healthcare departments operate across four prisons in the BSGW cluster, each of which requires a bespoke service responding to the prisoner and prison needs:

• HMP Ashfield – Cat C – Population = 412
• HMP Bristol – Cat B – Population = 638
• HMP Leyhill – Cat D (Open) – Population = 460

Oxleas are the lead provider across 10 South West prisons and operate in Devon and Dorset in addition to the above.

Our wider 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.

We have over 125 sites in a variety of locations in the South of England.

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 Listen
• We Care

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Management responsibilities

• To assist in the design and implementation of service development projects with the service as required.
• To attend meetings in which service developments are planned and discussed.

Clinical

• To undertake psychological assessments of clients applying psychological theory, including neuro-psychological 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.
• To assist in the formulation and delivery of care plans involving the psychological treatment and/or management of a client’s problems, under the supervision of a qualified professional psychologist, in the prison setting.
• To assist in the coordination and running of therapeutic groups or clinical projects.
• To work with other staff to assess or support service users in the prison and contribute to multidisciplinary discussions or care guidelines as agreed with the psychologist/psychological therapist providing supervision.
• To assist in the development of a psychological based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all clients of the service, across all settings where care takes place.

Research

• To assist in the design and implementation of audit and research projects.
• To undertake data collection, analysis, and the production of reports and summaries, using IT and statistical programmes.
• To create graphs or charts to collate or summarise data on individual interventions or treatment programmes.
• To assist in producing visual or material or user-friendly information for interventions with clients.

Communication

• In common with all assistant psychologists, to receive regular clinical supervision in accordance with professional practice guidelines.
• To gain wider experience of professional psychology within the NHS over and above that provided within the principal service area where the post holder is employed.
• To develop skills and competencies that assist in the delivery of current duties.
• To contribute to the training and support of other staff in psychological care.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION, PLEASE READ:

All applicants must be willing to undertake National Security Vetting in order to work in a Prison Setting. This will be completed as part of the pre-employment checks through Oxleas and the prison vetting team.

You will need to provide:

Proof of right to work documentation

Proof of ID, needs to include 1 photographic ID

Proof of address documentation

Non-UK passport holders will need to have correct documentation (right to work in the UK) and a Home office Share code.

Address History:

5 years address history will be needed.

Applicants that are not UK Passport holders who provide less than 5 years UK address history will need to provide a Police Certificate which must be in English from where they resided previously.

Applicants who are UK Passport holders who have lived abroad for a period of more than six months during the last three years will need to provide a certificate of good conduct or an overseas police check in English from the countries resided in or visited.

If the country you have resided in is not listed here, you can obtain the necessary information by contacting the relevant Embassy or High Commission for that Country. Their contact details can be found on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office website (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en ).

Person specification

Qualifications

• A lower second class (2.2) honours degree or higher in psychology
• Entitlement to graduate membership of the British Psychological Society

Skills

• High levels of communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be emotive
• An ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to a mental health context
• An interest in working within forensic settings with individuals with mental health problems

Experience

• Experience of working with service users with mental health problems, learning disabilities or offenders

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that welcomes and supports individuals of all abilities. Remember, if you meet the minimum criteria for this role and you have a disability, you can be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme - Please ensure you select this on your application form. We would encourage you to be open about your needs so we can work with you to design a comfortable and accessible interview experience. Any information you provide regarding a disability or a need for adjustments will be treated in confidence and will only be shared with colleagues who are supporting this request.

If you require any adjustments to participate fully in the interview process, please let us know by adding the relevant details when scheduling your preferred interview date and time. Please feel free to contact the appointing manager to discuss your needs.

We encourage applicants to contact the hiring manager before their interview if they have any questions about the role or the process. This is a great way to get clarity and prepare effectively for the interview.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.

If you'd like to explore opportunities to work for us please submit an expression of interest form.

Our HR team will keep in touch with you to find the right opportunity.