13667 - Senior Registered Psychologist – Psychology Services –PIPE – HMP Hindley in Portstewart

Do you have a passion for reducing reoffending and relational working? Do you enjoy supporting other professionals to deliver positive and boundaried relationships with prisoners to facilitate rehabilitation? Are you passionate about collaborative formulation and supporting prisoners to progress when they have struggled with this? Then we have just the job - NorthWest Psychology Services (NWPS) are seeking a Clinical Lead for a 10-bed main location Preparation PIPE (Psychologically Informed Planned Environment) at HMP Hindley, a Category C prison located in Wigan between Manchester and Liverpool.

This role offers a unique opportunity to provide clinical leadership in the only Category C Preparation PIPE in the country. This post is a permanent full-time Senior Psychologist role within the NWPS team with 0.8 (WTE) based on the PIPE and 0.2 (WTE) in the wider NWPS team. NWPS have a total of 3 PIPEs in our portfolio, and the Clinical Lead at HMP Hindley PIPE will be part of a team involved in clinical PIPE provision.

The post holder will be expected to engage in all necessary duties, including but not limited to mandatory training and reporting requirements, as well as completing duties as required by the PIPE role, including regular attendance at in-person national meetings at various locations and regular in-person group clinical supervision. Flexibility to travel is a requirement of this post. The post holder will be based on site at the PIPE at HMP Hindley for most of the working week with limited opportunity for flexible/hybrid working due to the relational nature of the role. Placement as PIPE Clinical Lead would be collaboratively reviewed with the post holder after a period of not more than 3 years to ensure development needs of both the PIPE environment and the post holder are being met.

To be eligible, the post holder should have two years post registration experience at the point of taking up post. However, applications will be welcomed from psychologists who have a minimum of 18 months post registration experience; they will not be able to formally take up the post until they have been registered for two years and subject to the necessary pre-employment checks.

The post holder will be working with complex individuals and staff, applying their experience and competence in psychology to reduce the risk of harm and re-offending by providing collaborative formulation, psycho-education, consultancy, supervision and training for staff, undertaking complex risk assessments, conducting research and interventions, both as part of the PIPE Clinical Lead and generic NWPS roles. This is a non-operational job with line management responsibilities.

PIPE Context: Psychologically Informed Planned Environments (PIPEs) are part of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway, jointly commissioned by the NHS and HMPPS. PIPEs are specifically designed, contained environments where staff members have additional training to develop an increased psychological understanding of their work. This understanding enables them to create an enhanced safe and supportive environment, which can facilitate the development of those who live and work there. They are designed to have a particular focus on the environment in which they operate; actively recognising the importance and quality of relationships and interactions. They aim to maximise ordinary situations and to approach these in a psychologically informed way, paying attention to interpersonal difficulties, for example those issues that might be linked to personality disorder. PIPEs are not treatment interventions - the PIPEs model has been developed as an environmental approach to enhance the delivery of core work within Prison and Probation (community) settings, where additional psychological or ‘psychosocial’ considerations are required.