Job overview

We are a small but friendly clinical team working within NSFT Day Care Service, located in HMP/YOI Norwich. The team comprises of a clinical lead psychologist, a psychotherapist, senior occupational therapist, assistant practitioner and senior mental health nurses, to provide therapeutic interventions to adult male prisoners.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a continually developing service, that offers therapeutic approaches underpinned by DBT and CBT. We offer treatment pathways that include, mood stabilisation, anxiety, relationship management, emotional regulation and trauma. We work with men who may self-harm, have attempted suicide, and experience high levels of anxiety or trauma/PTSD. We have also developed our service to support the violence reduction wing and support working with complex cases residing in seclusion.

Main duties of the job

As an assistant psychologist you will be expected to assist with running groups, writing formulations and discharge reports, inputting into multi-disciplinary team meetings regarding individuals in our service, and taking responsibility for your own work.  You may also be expected to work 1:1 with prisoners in delivering interventions under supervision. In addition, you will be invited to attend and contribute to ongoing referral meetings and discussions and engage in regular clinical supervision to access support and continue developing your expertise. You will be responsible for your own clinical record keeping and as assistant psychologist you will have the opportunity to be involved in developing research to support the service delivery and effectiveness.

We also work closely with the NSFT mental health in reach team, the IAPT/Wellbeing team and the wider IMHJP and secure and forensic services care group. We also work closely with partner agencies such as drug and alcohol services, and the wider HMP to build links with prison staff and support the delivery of training on therapeutic interventions, mental health conditions and advise on support plans. This will allow skills taught at day care to be transferred back to the wings with the prisoners feeling confident that the regime staff will have some understanding of coping strategies they are trying to use.

Working for our organisation

Here at NSFT we pride ourselves on being a welcoming, talented, friendly and supportive team who like nothing better than sharing experiences and learning from each other. In addition to ongoing training and development opportunities, we are committed to providing an environment in which you can thrive.

Why work for us? We have challenges as a Trust, but we have ambitious aspirations, are pushing ahead with exciting transformation work and we need dedicated individuals to support us on our journey. We have strong, established professional networks coupled with an exceptional leadership team who will ensure you are truly cared for and cared about.

Why Norfolk and Suffolk? The people here are warm and welcoming, you’ll never be far from the beautiful coastline or Broads National Park. We’re an hour and a half away from London and have an international airport in Norwich too. Our villages, towns and cities are packed full of history, independent cafes, shops and theatres. We have excellent shopping, eating out, top ranking schooling and affordable house prices too.