We are seeking an experienced clinical, forensic or counselling psychologist to join a well-established psychology service and multi-disciplinary team in the Forensic Outreach and Liaison Service (FOLS) in Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust (KMMH). The post requires providing specialist clinical/forensic psychological input to adults with complex, severe and enduring mental health difficulties, and offending histories. The service is based in Maidstone, Kent, and has good links with secure mental health and learning disability services within KMMH.
Your main responsibility will be to participate in the provision of Psychological Services to offenders with Autism within the FOLS service.
You will also be responsible for the systematic provision of specialist clinical/forensic psychology services to adults with complex, severe and enduring mental health difficulties and offending histories. The post is based primarily in the FOLS team but may also involve clinical work more broadly across low secure services and community forensic outreach services as required.
You will undertake high quality direct (assessment and therapeutic) and indirect (consultative, advisory and evaluative) specialist psychology interventions in these services and taking substantial professional responsibility and exercising autonomous judgement in their professional practice.
To provide specialist psychological assessment and therapy to FOLS patients who have Autism and complex and severe mental health problems and offending histories, utilising information from a broad range of structured psychometric and semi-structured clinical methodologies and integrating it into a psychological formulation of the patient and the psychosocial environment as well as drawing on a range of psychological theoretical perspectives.
To undertake a range of psychological therapeutic interventions, drawing on a range of psychological models and employing a range of modalities (individual, group).
To provide support to the existing FOLS team around working with offenders and offering training, consultation and advice.
To formulate and implement plans of specialist psychological treatment or management of patients’ mental health problems based on a multi-factorial psychological understanding and current evidence-based best practice.
To undertake a range of psychological therapeutic interventions, drawing on a range of psychological models and employing a range of modalities (individual, family and group) adapted and tailored to the needs of the individual and the context and the ongoing evaluation of the outcomes of the intervention.
To be responsible for providing a specialist psychological perspective in the multi-disciplinary assessment of service users and their families.
We are Kent and Medway Mental Health NHS Trust. We care for the mental health and wellbeing of people across Kent and Medway and are rated ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Our teams support children, young people and adults with a wide range of mental health needs. We also provide specialist services, including all-age eating disorder services and neurodevelopmental assessments for children and young people, such as autism and ADHD.
Because we work across the whole county and across hospital and community settings, we can make care more joined up and easier to access for the people we serve.
Our vision is simple: we are here to help communities not just live with mental illness, but live well. It’s why we’re passionate about working with communities to make mental health care better for everyone. Everything we do is guided by our values: caring, inclusive, curious and confident.
Join us if you share our passion for better mental health care and want to be part of a team that’s working well together.
To be regularly responsible for providing training placements for trainee clinical psychologists and forensic trainees and for providing professional support and guidance to newly qualified, band 7 and band 8A senior psychologists in this specialism.
The nature of forensic work requires the postholder to operate within the public arena and have specialist knowledge of, and skills in working with, a wide variety of other professional agencies such as courts, police, prisons, the legal profession, probation and social services.
Please refer to the attached job description for full details and main responsibilities of the role.
We are serious about diversity and inclusion, and we are working hard to build this into our DNA. We warmly welcome applications for any of our roles from people from diverse backgrounds, and we are proactively encouraging applications from under-represented communities for our more senior roles, like this one
