Job responsibilities
In this senior
clinician role, the Principal Psychologist will provide clinical leadership to
the mental health team, ensuring the delivery of effective psychological
services that support the unique challenges faced by individuals in prison. The
Principal Psychologist will work collaboratively with the prison's senior
leadership team and external stakeholders, and will actively contribute to
regional quality review processes and service development meetings, ensuring
that mental health services are continuously improved and aligned with best
practices and meeting agreed targets. This role will work closely with the
wider national psychological therapies team and contribute to service model
review and improvement against new research and in line with best practice and
NICE guidelines. Additionally, the role involves contributing to regional
quality review and service development meetings to ensure that mental health
services are responsive to the needs of individuals in prison and actively work
to minimize the cycle of intergenerational trauma. By leading initiatives that
connect individuals with essential resources and support, the Principal
Psychologist will play a vital role in promoting the mental well-being of both patients
and staff within a remand prison setting.
MAIN DUTIES/RESPONSIBILITIES
Clinical -
To provide highly specialist psychological assessment of high complex patients
based upon the appropriate use, interpretation and integration of complex data
from a variety of sources including psychological and neuropsychological tests,
self-report measures, rating scales, direct and indirect structured
observations and semi-structured interviews with patients, family members (when
appropriate) and others involved in the patients care.
To make highly specialist clinical decisions and clinical judgements
about patient care, processes and service developments;
To provide specialist trauma informed, psychological insight, guidance
and consultation to other professionals contributing directly to patients
formulation, diagnosis and treatment plan;
To lead and evaluate the implementation of a range of psychological
interventions for individuals and groups, adjusting and refining psychological
formulations drawing upon different explanatory models, and maintaining a
number of provisional hypotheses; engage in structured and dynamic risk
assessments;
To evaluate and make decisions about treatment options taking in to
account both theoretical and therapeutic models and highly complex factors
including historical and developmental processes that have shaped the individual,
family or group;
To contribute directly and indirectly to a trauma informed,
psychologically-based framework of understanding and care to the benefit of all
clients of the service, promoting the psychological mindedness of staff;
To contribute a psychosocial, trauma informed perspective within the
multidisciplinary team including for those patients not directly on the
psychologists caseload and attend individual patient reviews and risk
management meetings where appropriate;
To attend ACCT reviews and segregation reviews in the prison
as appropriate and to offer psychological opinion about management and appropriate
referrals in that context and, offer psychological understanding into CSIP
plans to support management of patients within the wing by prison staff;
Foster good working relationships with Offender Management,
Probation to Reconnect services to a psychologically informed understanding of
patients needs during transition into open conditions or release into the
community;
To communicate in a skilled and sensitive manner, highly
complex/sensitive information concerning the assessment, formulation and
treatment plans to the patient, appropriate professional colleagues and to
family members, as appropriate, and to monitor and evaluate progress during the
course of multi-disciplinary discussions;
To be able to complete and interpret formal psychometric assessments;
To maintain accurate clinical records and keep the PTS dashboard up to
date with outcomes data for patient/service and staff outcomes;
To contribute to the development of specialized individual treatment
plans or packages of care for patients with complex psychological problems and
who may present a risk of harm to themselves or others;
To be able to manage the emotional impact of working, often
one-to-one, with people who can be in crisis, who can show high levels of
arousal and can be actively self-harming or suicidal;
To work jointly with other psychologists/therapists, to plan and hand
over the psychological assessment and treatments of patients that may continue
after either transfer to other prisons or released in the community or other
recovery-based settings.
In liaison with Mental Leads and/or Heads of Healthcare and the
National Head of Psychological Therapies, identify opportunities for and
conduct service development projects in collaboration with other members of the
multidisciplinary team;
Participate in and contribute to CPD and peer supervision within the
wider healthcare team;
Active engagement in appropriate practice supervision.
Teaching, training and supervision
To receive
regular clinical supervision from an appropriately qualified and experienced
supervisor, in accordance with the BPS and the HCPC guidelines and, where appropriate,
from other senior professional colleagues and, to supervise junior psychology
colleagues and other therapists and MDT colleagues as appropriate;
To provide
training and supervision for members of the service (healthcare and prison) in
the delivery of psychologically, trauma informed care and treatment;
To provide
specialist advice and consultation and training to members of other disciplines
within the teams and to non-psychology manager of the teams on psychological
understanding, interventions and evaluations;
To develop and
deliver teaching as appropriate for members of staff from other disciplines;
Responsible
for planning, delivery and clinical supervision of a specialist psychology
training placement for trainees on the postgraduate doctoral courses in
clinical/counselling and/ or forensic psychology;
To develop
further post-qualification experience in psychology over and above that
provided through training by engaging in a clearly planned CPD programme in
accordance with British Psychological Society guidance and in line with service
model and needs;
To contribute
to peer psychology supervision sessions.
Management, recruitment, policy and
service development
To plan and
supervise the work of undergraduate psychology students, and trainee
psychologists and be responsible for their support in their placements;
To contribute to proposals and
implementation of policy and service development changes in relation to
psychology and psychological therapies;
To advise the Mental
Health lead and/or Heads of Healthcare on those aspects of the service where
psychological matters need addressing in line with best practice and service
objectives;
Responsible for contributing to
the planning, organizing, auditing and developing of policy strategies for the
delivery of the psychological therapies service;
To contribute to proposals
for and implementation of policy and service development changes in relation to
psychology and psychological therapies within the service;
To take responsibility for
representation of the profession at appropriate service development and
governance meetings as agreed with their Line Manager and in line with Personal
and Professional Development Plans (PDPs);
To contribute to recruitment
shortlisting and interviewing as appropriate across the service;
Research, service evaluation & audit
To utilise theory, evidence based literature and research to support
evidence based practice in individual/ group work and work with other team
members;
To undertake project management, including complex audit, research and
service evaluation projects, with colleagues within the service, to help
develop service provision;
To prepare and
present information from audits, evaluations and research to professional
audiences within and outside the Organisation
To prepare
papers for publication based on audit, evaluation, research and development
work
To utilise theory, evidence based
literature and research to support evidence based practice in individual work
and work with other team members.
Professional -
To attend regional and national Psychological Therapies meetings,
service development and other relevant meetings regularly;
To adhere to professional/accrediting body codes of conduct, policies
and procedures (e.g. HCPC, BABCP, BPS);
To be aware of, adhere to, and where appropriate, contribute to the
formulation and review of Practice Plus Group policies and procedures;
To maintain and develop high standards of psychology/psychological
therapy practice by engaging in continuing professional development and
co-operative working/networking with therapists, clinical, counselling and
forensic psychologist colleagues;
To receive regular line management supervision by the Head of
Healthcare
To participate in the organisations annual performance review and
personal development planning process with the clinical supervisor and line
manager;
To keep up to date with
legislation, national directives, policies and NICE guidelines in relation to
the work delivered.
Other
This Job Description is not exhaustive and may change as the post
develops, but such change will not take place without consultation between the
post holder and their manager. Job descriptions should be reviewed at least
annually at the appraisal meeting.
