Senior Clinical/Counselling Psychologist

Job summary

We are excited that our prison services are transforming in partnership with other healthcare providers across our London Prisons and are looking for candidates who are interested in working in prison mental health to come and work with us in our Mental Health Hub in HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

The mental health provision at HMP Wormwood Scrubs is a specialist mix of psychological therapies, speech and language therapy, forensic psychiatry, nursing, and occupational therapy.

We are looking for an experienced psychologist, ideally with prison experience, to join our rich MDT and lead on embedding trauma-informed care at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. This is an exciting new post providing an opportunity to lead on changing the prison culture and will rely on strong relationship, clinical, leadership and creative skills.

The post holder will work with the therapies team within the Mental Health Hub, offering a high standard of care and an integrated triage, assessment and intervention for individuals within our prison settings who are presenting with mental health problems.

The successful candidate will benefit from a supportive team and opportunities for continued professional development – for example, this year we have supported staff to complete their EMDR and ADOS training and have an ongoing commitment to staff training and wellbeing.

Potential to move to full-time

Main duties of the job

This is an exciting opportunity to provide a qualified specialist psychology service to service users under the care of the Mental Health team and Therapies Service at HMP Wormwood Scrubs. The role includes providing specialist psychological assessment and therapy, at the same time as offering advice and consultation on service users’ psychological care to non-psychologist colleagues. The post holder will also provide supervision to unqualified and qualified psychology staff and support senior staff to further develop the service. They will utilise research skills for audit, policy, service development and research within the area served by the team/service.

Unfortunately, due to security restrictions and vetting requirements, we are not able to accept applications from overseas individuals without a National Insurance number. B7/ 8a preceptorships will also be considered.

Person Specification

Qualifications/Training

Essential

• Doctoral level training in Clinical / Health / Counselling psychology.
• Post-graduate doctoral level qualification in Clinical, Health or Counselling psychology as accredited by the British Psychological Society, or British Psychological Society Statement of Equivalence.
• Current registration with the Health and Care Professions Council as a practitioner psychologist
• Completion of further post-doctoral post-qualification specialist training in one of: ADOS, EMDR, Trauma informed CBT, ACT or CFT.

Skills

Essential

• Skills in the use of a range of methods of psychological assessment, intervention and management for the full range of problems of severity and complexity presented in adult mental health, particularly with regards to trauma and neurodiversity
• Ability to communicate effectively, orally and in writing, with service users, their families, carers and other professional colleagues both within and outside the NHS.
• Skills in providing consultation to other mental health professional and non-mental health professional groups.
• Skills in providing training to other mental health professional and non-mental health professional groups.

Experience/Knowledge

Essential

• Experience of psychological assessment and treatment of adult service users in a Tier 3 setting, ideally within a forensic setting or prison establishment
• Experience of working with a wide variety of service users, across the whole life course and presenting problems.
• Significant post-qualification experience working with service users with depression, anxiety and trauma and its comorbidities.
• Significant experience in working with service users with neurodiverse needs.
• Experience of teaching, training and offering effective consultation and supervision services.
• Experience of the application of psychology in different cultural contexts.
• High level knowledge of the theory and practice of psychological therapies, with demonstrated competence in the delivery of effective, evidence-based psychological interventions
• Doctoral level knowledge of research methodology, research design and data analysis as practised within the clinical fields of psychology.
• Knowledge of legislation in relation to the service user group and mental health.

Personal Qualities

Essential

• An ability to form good working relationships with colleagues in a multi-disciplinary setting.
• Understanding of the importance of reflective practice, self-awareness, self-care and use of supervision and support provisions to maintain safe and effective working practice. An ability to seek help when needed and communicate effectively with supervisors and managers.
• An ability to respond professionally and sensitively to service users who are anxious, angry, or distressed.
• A positive attitude towards continuous improvement programmes and audit in forensic health
• An ability to prioritise workload, support with monthly data and meet deadlines in-line with service needs.
• Excellent organisation skills and an ability to work safely, independently and reliably within the time constraints of the role.

Other requirements

Essential

• Excellent IT skills and confidence using multiple devices across different locations and organisations.

Closing Date: 12 August 2026