Band 8b Principal Practitioner Psychologist – Reaside Clinic: Sponsorship Available

Job summary

Join Our Psychological Therapies Team at Reaside Clinic

Are you:

Creative, reflective and resilient

Passionate about supporting people with complex needs

Interested in mental health, trauma, personality difficulties and risk

Collaborative and able to challenge systems constructively

Compassionate, authentic and relationship-focused

If so, apply for this permanent role at Reaside Clinic, part of Secure Care and Offender Health Services (SCOH), a 92-bed medium secure service supports adult men with severe, complex mental health needs and histories of violence or offending.

We seek enthusiastic, resilient and compassionate professionals who want to make a difference in forensic mental health and develop their careers.

You will join a supportive, growing Psychological Therapies team of Practitioner Psychologists, Arts Psychotherapists, Specialist Psychological Practitioners, Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Psychologists. Working within a multidisciplinary team, you will deliver formulation-led interventions, shape recovery pathways and strategy, support innovation, and build specialist forensic expertise.

Main duties of the job

This is not just a clinical role. This is a leadership position within an existing and developing team. It combines a combination of opportunities to influence, lead and contribute to service development initiatives, help integrate develop psychologically informed systems and cultures across services provide supervision and line management, support research, audit, training, and evaluation projects , and develop professional growth in yourself and others.

We recognise that working in secure care can be both rewarding and challenging. You will be supported by experienced colleagues and strong multi-model supervision structures designed to support your professional development and wellbeing.

We are also committed to helping staff identify and develop their own professional interests — your “shiny thing” — aligning your growth with both your aspirations and service needs.

We actively value diverse backgrounds and perspectives that can bring fresh thinking to our evolving services.

We are committed to continuous professional development and offer:

Excellent supervision structures

Opportunities for leadership development

Access to research and innovation projects

Supportive multidisciplinary working

Career progression opportunities across SCOH services

If you are ready for the next stage in your career and want to contribute to meaningful, psychologically informed care within a supportive and ambitious team, we would love to hear from you.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Satisfactory completion of a British Psychological Society accredited Doctoral Level postgraduate professional training course in clinical psychology (the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology, or its equivalent for those trained prior to 1996), the completion of which includes the study of models of psychopathology, psychometric and neuropsychological assessment, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• The Graduate Basis for Registration (further to completion of an honours degree in psychology accredited by the British Psychological Society, or, in the case of courses that are not accredited or where the first degree is not in psychology, by completion of the Society’s Qualifying examination, or completion of a Society accredited Conversion Course).

Desirable

• Post-doctoral training in one or more highly specialist areas of psychological practice / therapy.

Experience

Essential

• Assessed experience of working as a registered practitioner psychologist for a minimum of 4 years post qualification, with a minimum of at least 2 years at the Senior (highly specialist) level.
• Experience of highly specialist psychological assessment and individual and group based treatment of clients across the full range of care settings, including primary and secondary/ specialist care and inpatient/residential, outpatient and community team settings.
• Experience of working with a wide variety of client groups, with clients of all ages across the lifespan and of wide-ranging presenting problems that reflect the full spectrum of clinical complexity and severity.
• Relevant post-qualification experience, and formal training in supervision, enabling the post holder to independently supervise clinical psychology trainees in accordance with relevant criteria adopted by local University Clinical Psychology Training Course criteria

Desirable

• Experience of the application of clinical forensic psychology in different cultural contexts.
• Experience of working therapeutically with ‘difficult to treat’ and or ‘hard to reach’ groups and clients.
• Experience of safeguarding and risk management across several agencies, including appropriately escalating concerns

Skills

Essential

• Skills in providing consultation and advice from a psychological perspective to members of other professional and non-professional groups
• Highly developed skills, commensurate with doctoral level training and post qualification training and experience, in the formulation of highly complex problems from a psychological perspective and in the implementation of highly specialist psychological therapies, interventions and management techniques that are appropriate for use with highly complex presenting problems. Able to deliver established/evidenced based psychological therapy to fidelity.

Desirable

• In depth knowledge of information governance legislation and information sharing practices across agencies

Personal

Essential

• Is a ‘team player’ and has demonstrated ability to work and deliver to team and organisational objectives
• Capacity for tolerating frustration, change and high levels of demand with an ability to work effectively under pressure.

Other

Essential

• Ability to accept and use supervision appropriately and effectively
• Awareness and understanding of the purpose and mechanisms of clinical governance and an ability to employ such mechanisms to maintain and improve standards of clinical practice

Closing Date: 22 November 2026