Assistant Psychologist jobs in United Kingdom

A Vacancy at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Clinical or Forensic Psychologist to lead and clinically manage a Psychologically Informed Planned Environment (PIPE) within the Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway. As the Clinical Lead, you will shape a safe, enabling, and psychologically centred environment for individuals with complex personality needs who have recently been released from prison. The service is based within a Probation Approved Premises in Peterborough, supporting rehabilitation and reducing reoffending.

This pivotal role involves overseeing PIPE service delivery, ensuring the integrity of the PIPE model, facilitating therapeutic group work, and contributing to national service development. You will provide clinical supervision, develop staff capability, and work closely with key stakeholders, including HMPPS, the NHS, and the wider OPD network. This is a fulfilling and dynamic role that helps shape a trauma-informed and relationally focused service.

The post holder will hold a strategic position as Clinical Lead for the PIPE service and will manage a wide range of complex dynamics within the environment and host organisation. This will require the post holder to take on a leadership role within the organisation, working effectively alongside operational and strategic leads for the service.

They will have a key role in maintaining a healthy psychosocial environment; ensuring that the unit adheres to the theoretical principles of the PIPE model. This will include design, delivery and oversight of the core components of the PIPE model, including group work and the management of group dynamics.

The post holder will manage the development of a positive and enabling milieu, ensuring that the delivery of psychosocial aspects of the PIPE service is compliant with policy and delivery arrangements. This will include ensuring the PIPE service maintains the standards set out for the Enabling Environment award.

The post holder will contribute to staff development by offering training, supporting and providing clinical supervision. They will also participate in individual and group (peer) supervision, provided in a central location by a Group Analytic Consultant each month. They will also attend the Clinical Leads Business Meeting along with other Clinical Leads.

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 and empowering 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.

Please be advised we reserve the right to close adverts early if we receive sufficient applications.

Regrettably, we cannot offer sponsorship for all our job roles. If you apply for a role that we cannot offer sponsorship for, your application form will be rejected from the process.

For further information on CPFT, please visit our website at www.cpft.nhs.uk

Please refer to the attached job description and person specification for full details of responsibilities.

• To manage the delivery of the PIPE model in line with the PIPE service specification and national guidance; developing operational structures and approaches so that they are appropriately psychologically and psychosocially informed.
• To develop necessary psychosocial conditions required to support progression through the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway, ensuring the service has a focus on the lived ‘experience’ of service users.
• To develop and implement socially-creative, semi-structured activities within the PIPE in order to contribute to a healthy psychosocial environment. To ensure these sessions are responsive and adhere to principles of service user involvement and engagement.
• To develop a culture that promotes ‘planned’ and ‘psychologically informed’ responses from staff in relation to the host environment. This includes consideration of institutional dynamics and processes.
• To support and manage the referral and assessment process for those applying to the PIPE, ensuring any relevant population and criteria considerations are taken into account, and all decisions are documented. Also, to liaise with the national Clinical Development Lead for PIPEs where appropriate.
• To ensure that there is consistency and equity in approach from frontline members of the PIPE team, managing and mitigating the clinical impact of staffing structures, e.g. shift patterns or long absences.
• In conjunction with the Operational Lead to ensure the weekly programme of activities in the PIPE meet both clinical and operational requirements.
• To oversee the delivery of the structured and socially-creative groups and to develop further groups as the need arises.
• To ensure the unit maintains the recognised “Enabling Environment” award status, in conjunction with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
• To promote and support a culture of innovation and creativity in the approach to working within the PIPE framework.

This advert closes on Monday 22 Sep 2025