Job overview

AWP Secure Inpatient Services are seeking an experienced clinical, forensic, or counselling psychologist for a Band 8b maternity cover position. This role involves working with individuals experiencing significant mental health difficulties, such as psychosis, who present a substantial risk to others.

Secure Inpatient Services comprises Fromeside, an 81-bed medium secure unit, and Wickham, a 30-bed low secure unit, both located on the Blackberry Hill Hospital site in north Bristol. The service includes a specialist women's ward and an 8-bed ward for men with learning disabilities and/or autism. Our large, friendly psychology team has expertise in addressing a wide range of issues, including violence, sexual offending, fire setting, learning disabilities, autism, personality disorders, and psychosis.

Main duties of the job

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead on the delivery of Medium Secure inpatient psychology services across Secure providing highly specialist therapy and assessment services to individuals with severe mental health problems and forensic histories referred to Secure Services from within the West of England catchment area.
• Co-ordinate and deliver the clinical service and manage team activities under the supervision of the Head of Psychological Therapies.
• Supervise and support Band 8a, Band 7, Trainees and assistant  psychologists.
• Provide direct clinical work, consultation, teaching, and staff support.
• Collaborate with the multidisciplinary team (MDT), including psychiatry, nursing, arts psychotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech and language therapists.
• Conduct specialist assessments, develop complex formulations, and design and deliver individualised therapeutic interventions.
• Facilitate therapeutic groups and engage in complex systemic work.
• Participate in the continued development of the service, including liaising with key stakeholders.
• Provide specialist clinical supervision to clinical psychologists and other staff working within the service and offer consultation to partner agencies and other stakeholders.
• Engage in service development projects.

We welcome discussions with interested candidates about this exciting opportunity.

Working for our organisation

We are AWP (Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust) a diverse organisation with over 5,000 dedicated staff providing inpatient and community-based mental health care.  We provide services from a range of locations to approximately 1.8 million people living in Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Swindon, across the county of Wiltshire and in parts of Dorset.

Our outstanding people promote mental health and wellbeing. The expertise and resources within AWP are dedicated to a person-centred approach for those who use our services and for all employees. We recognise that happy and fulfilled employees give better care.

At AWP we actively encourage applicants from all backgrounds; we are particularly keen to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities and from the LGBTQ+ community. We want people to bring their unique blend of experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and knowledge to AWP, as diversity makes us stronger.