Assistant Psychologist: Sponsorship Available

South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust

Job Summary

This is an exciting and unique opportunity to join the newly developed Forensic Intellectual and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (FIND) Community Team in South-West London & St George’s Mental Health Trust (SWLSTG).

The FIND Team will work closely with the newly developed Oak Unit, a Learning Disability and Autism (LDA) Ward, one of the four inpatient wards, which comprise the South-West London & St George’s Forensic Service. The Forensic Outreach Service (FOS) provides a safe transition for inpatients discharged from the Forensic Service and the FIND Team will sit within FOS in order to provide specialist assessment, treatment and consultation in order to ensure a smooth, safe and clinically justified pathway to individuals with mental illness, offending history and learning disability with or without neurodevelopmental disorder.

The three forensic services of SWLSTG, South London and Maudsley (SLaM) and Oxleas together comprise the South London Mental Health and Community Partnership (SLP). The SLP’s overarching goals centre on bringing care closer to home, improving patient pathways and outcomes by delivering excellent care in better environments. The SLP has a track record of delivering highly effective, clinically informed service developments in order to better meet the needs of service-users.

 

Main duties of the job

The FIND Team Assistant Psychologist will work under the supervision of the FIND Team Psychologist to complete specialist neurodevelopmental assessments and interventions that help the transition of service-users to less restrictive environments. In particular, the post-holder will be engaged in assessing the responsivity of service-users to assessment and intervention materials and adapting them according to their specific learning and neurodevelopmental needs. Previous experience of working in forensic services and/or experience of working with neurodivergent clients, including those with learning disabilities will be a distinct advantage.

You will work alongside the FIND Team Psychologist, who will be providing consultation to the MDT and other agencies on all factors which will help the service-user remain in the community. For example, the suitability of community placements, the nature of ongoing support and care, meaningful activities and the establishment of a supportive social network.

Given that the FIND Team at SWLSTG is a new venture, this is an exciting time to join, as the successful candidate with have opportunities to help shape how the team interacts with the rest of the Forensic Service or other agencies; through training of other professionals, development of psychological groups etc.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

  • An upper second-class honours degree or higher in psychology.
  • Graduate membership of the British Psychological Society.

Desirable

  • Further post graduate training in relevant areas of professional psychology, mental health practice and/or research design and analysis.

Experience

Essential

  • Experience of working with people with learning disabilities and people with autism, mental health and offending behaviour problems.

Desirable

  • Experience of working in forensic and/or substance misuse services.
  • Experience of co-facilitating psychosocial groups.
  • Experience of working within a Multi-Disciplinary Team.

Skills & Knowledge

Essential

  • High level communication skills (written and verbal) including an ability to communicate and work in settings in which the atmosphere may be highly emotive.
  • An understanding of the needs and difficulties of people with learning disabilities, autism, mental health and offending behaviour problems.
  • An ability to apply existing psychological knowledge to a mental health context.
  • Experience using IT for databases or data-analysis.
  • Ability to contribute to formal research programmes.

Desirable

  • The ability to consider difficult clinical situations and one’s own practice in a reflective manner.
  • Knowledge and experience of using SPSS for windows
  • Knowledge and experience of using EXCEL for spread sheets.
  • Knowledge and experience of using ACCESS for databases.
  • High standard of report writing

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Certificate of Sponsorship

Applications from job seekers who require current Skilled worker sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. For further information visit the UK Visas and Immigration website (Opens in a new tab).

From 6 April 2017, skilled worker applicants, applying for entry clearance into the UK, have had to present a criminal record certificate from each country they have resided continuously or cumulatively for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Adult dependants (over 18 years old) are also subject to this requirement. Guidance can be found here Criminal records checks for overseas applicants (Opens in a new tab).

Closing Date: 19 June 2025

To apply for this job please visit apps.trac.jobs.