Band 7/8a Specialist Clinical Psychologist – Ardenleigh: Sponsorship Available

Job summary

1 x 0.7 – Band 7/8a Practitioner Psychologist with preceptorship (permanent) – Ardenleigh Women’s Secure Blended Service (full time

An exciting job opportunity has arisen to recruit a band7/8a Practitioner Psychologist, with preceptorship, to join our innovative psychology team at Ardenleigh.

The Women’s Secure Blended Service (WSBS) at Ardenleigh has an incredible national reputation, having been a successful pilot site for the blended security model and a key influence in the National Women’s Secure Pathway Transformation (WSPT) programme. The service is particularly proud of its gender sensitive, trauma informed model of care and commitment to co-production and improvement.

We work alongside a number of professionals, providing safe, containing environments and interventions to help people understand themselves, their mental health and offending behaviour. The team has been at the forefront of service developments, such as establishing the Outreach Service to prevent avoidable admissions, developing partnership working across the pathway to improve quality of care, diversifying psychological therapies to meet the needs of the client group, and leading on the planning and delivery of a national conference in 2023. The service is currently developing a step-down accommodation to support transitions to the community, improving the pathway for women who access secure mental health services.

Main duties of the job

This exciting role offers the suitable candidate opportunities for leadership, service development and complex clinical work, with a rewarding client group. You will be joining a large and diverse psychological therapies team, consisting of clinical and forensic psychologists, arts therapists, specialist psychological practitioners and assistant psychologists.

We currently have a 0.7wte team psychologist vacancy but if you are looking for a full-time role, please do get in touch and we can look to accommodate this within the division.

The Practitioner Psychologist role will involve working alongside staff to ensure that service users have the most effective, efficient, relationally connected and contained experience. Within Ardenleigh we also have a strong service user involvement and co-production ethos, having developed group pathways, interventions and training. We will advocate for you to maintain all aspects of your professional role, including service development, research, therapeutic excellence, and leadership as appropriate. We are looking for registered Practitioner Psychologists who are interested in working in secure environments with highly sensitive content. Whilst secure experience will be highly desirable, we encourage a breadth of experience to help bring new thinking to our services as the culture evolves.

Person Specification

Qualifications

Essential

• Satisfactory completion of a British Psychological Society accredited Doctoral Level postgraduate professional training course in clinical/forensic psychology completion of which includes the study of models of psychopathology, psychometric and neuropsychological assessment, two or more distinct psychological therapies and lifespan developmental psychology.
• Eligibility for entry onto the Register of Chartered Psychologists

Experience

Essential

• Experience of 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, including forensic contexts with clients of all ages across the lifespan and of wide-ranging presenting problems that reflect the full spectrum of clinical complexity and severity.

Desirable

• At least 2 years post qualification experience, and formal training in supervision, enabling the post holder to independently supervise psychology trainees in accordance with relevant criteria adopted by local University Psychology Training Courses criteria.

Knowledge

Essential

• Well developed theoretical and practical knowledge of the field of clinical psychology, consistent with doctoral level professional training and further post qualification study, training and supervised experience during a minimum of 18 to 24 months as a Specialist Clinical/Forensic Psychologist.
• Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills (written and verbal) including the ability to empathically, sensitively and effectively communicate clinical and condition related information to clients, their families, carers and professional colleagues (within and outside the NHS) that is extremely complicated or technical; extremely sensitive and potentially distressing to the recipient; or that is extremely contentious or challenging.
• Skills in the use of complex methods of psychological assessment commensurate with doctoral level training, including specialist clinical interviewing, behavioural observation, complex psychometric testing and specialist neuropsychological testing.
• Skills in providing consultation and advice from a psychological perspective to members of other professional and non-professional groups
• Awareness and understanding of the differential needs of people from black and minority ethnic groups and of the service issues arising within a multicultural urban area.

Desirable

• Knowledge of the theory and practice of specialised psychological therapies in specific ‘difficult to treat’ groups (e.g. personality disorder, challenging behaviour, dual diagnoses, people with additional disabilities etc).
• Knowledge of relevant legislation and DoH policy and implementation guidelines in relation to mental health in general and the client group with which this post is concerned.

Personal

Essential

• Ability to interact and to build and sustain relationships with people with mental health problems and associated disabilities
• Is a ‘team player’ and has demonstrated ability to work and deliver to team and organisational objectives
• Ability to interact effectively with staff from all disciplines.

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: 1 November 2026