Assistant Psychologist

We are happy to be adding to our large psychology service within the Edenfield Centre, Adult Forensic Services. The Edenfield Centre offers medium, low and step-down services to adult men and women with significant mental health and forensic needs. The successful applicant would support the provision of evidence-based psychological interventions, under the supervision of a qualified Practitioner Psychologist, predominantly in the male side of the service. The role will entail the delivery of a combination of individual, group and systemic interventions. Likewise, contributing to quality improvement initiatives will be values, such as via research/audit.

The successful applicant would join a large psychology team of Practitioner Psychologists, an Assistant Psychologist, an Art Therapist and a number of Trainee Psychologists. They would also work closely with professionals from other disciplines.

To contribute to the provision of a high-quality, specialist psychology service for men and women with complex clinical and forensic needs, detained in low and medium secure services, and based at Prestwich Hospital Site (including Edenfield Centre and the Lowry Unit). The post entails supporting the provision of assessments and therapeutic interventions to inpatients, on both an individual and group basis, and under supervision and line management provided by a qualified psychologist. The post holder will also be expected to contribute to service evaluations and audits, as required.

Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) is one of the leading mental health trusts in the UK.

Serving a population of 1.2million people, across one of the most exciting and affordable cities in Europe, GMMH provides community and inpatient mental health care, alongside prison in reach, substance misuse services, a specialist centre for mental health and deafness and inpatient perinatal mental health care.

The Trust employs around 5700 people, who make a difference across 130 locations. Staff at GMMH work to improve lives with a culture based on five core values:

- We are caring and compassionate
- We inspire hope
- We work together
- We value and respect
- We are open and honest

GMMH is one of the most active research trusts in the UK, with one of the highest levels of recruitment to clinical trials for mental health.

We have been rated ‘Good’ overall by the Care Quality Commission. Our substance misuse services and leadership were rated as ‘Outstanding’
- To support the psychological assessment, formulation, and treatment of forensic mental health inpatients. This could be informed by one or more therapeutic approaches (e.g., schema therapy, cognitive analytic therapy (CAT), dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), etc), and be in individual or group contexts.
- To contribute to the multi-disciplinary team’s psychological understanding of service users.
- To attend and contribute to multidisciplinary meetings.
- To contribute to progress notes, letters, reports, risk assessments and management plans, and other clinical documents.
- To work with potentially distressing material in relation to service users’ personal histories and offending behaviour, as well as risks to self and others.
- To use a degree of initiative and work independently, and to exercise judgment based on good practice and operating procedures.
- To assist in the design and implementation of service development projects within the service.
- To attend meetings in which service developments are planned and discussed as required.
- To undertake data collection, analysis, and the production of full reports and summaries, using IT and statistical programmes.
- To review evidence based literature and research to assist the service and work with other team members in their clinical responsibilities as necessary