Art Psychotherapist- HMP Downview OPD Service

Cnwlnhshealthcharity; United Kingdom; On-site; GBP 53,000 - 61,000; Part time

Job summary

A leading healthcare charity in the United Kingdom is seeking an Art Psychotherapist to work with women with complex needs in a prison setting. The successful candidate will deliver Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and support women through treatment plans while providing clinical supervision. This role includes flexible working options and the opportunity to engage in professional development activities. Applicants must have a relevant master's degree and HCPC registration, as well as experience working in challenging behavior settings.

Benefits

Flexible working options

Generous relocation package

Career development opportunities

Qualifications

• Post-qualification experience of autonomous working with a relevant client group.
• Substantial experience of personal psychotherapy.
• Knowledge of current forensic arts psychotherapies research.

Responsibilities

• Deliver Modified Forensic Dialectical Behavioural Therapy to women in the OPD pathway.
• Develop and facilitate individual sessions and therapeutic groups.
• Manage risk and maintain a safe environment during therapy.

Skills

Experience working with personality disorder

Individual and group treatment expertise

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy knowledge

Ability to work in multi-agency settings

High standard of art making

Education

MA/MSc or equivalent in art psychotherapy

Registered with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC)

Tools

SystmOne

P-NOMIS

Job description

Art Psychotherapist- HMP Downview OPD Service

NHS AfC: Band 7

Main area Health & Justice Services Grade NHS AfC: Band 7 Contract Permanent Hours Part time - 15 hours per week (Health & Justice Services) Job ref 333-D-HJ-1944

Site HMP Downview Town Sutton, Surrey Salary £53,751 - £60,651 per annum inc HCAS pro rata Salary period Yearly Closing 04/01/2026 23:59

CNWL (Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust) has almost 8,000 staff providing integrated healthcare to a third of London's population, Milton Keynes and areas beyond. We involve service users, carers, the public, staff and partner organisations in the way that we are run.

Our catchment area spans diverse communities, with over 100 first languages spoken. It contains areas of great affluence as well as areas of much deprivation. We are committed to providing services that meet the needs of the people who use them, and we actively encourage involvement from local people who can help make a difference. We’re proud of our diversity and we continue to undertake new initiatives to advance equality for LGBT+, BME and people with disabilities to promote good relations and understanding between our staff.

We are recognised locally, nationally and internationally for providing high quality, innovative healthcare. We aim to employ only the best people, and our experts are frequently called upon to contribute to national health strategy and policy, and many models of our care have been adapted for use in other countries.

We offer a generous relocation package (subject to eligibility assessment) and flexible working options, including bank assignments for most roles. For more information on these and other benefits of working for us, see our Benefits, Reward and Wellbeing page.

CNWL NHS Foundation Trust are committed to safeguarding all children and vulnerable adults and expect all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We follow safe recruitment practices to protect children and vulnerable adults.

Job overview

Are you interested in working with personality disorder and assisting teams to support women with complex needs? We are seeking an Arts Psychotherapist to join our ‘Options’ Offender Personality Disorder Team at HMP Downview (a female prison based in Sutton, Surrey). Options is a treatment and support service running primarily modified forensic DBT Programmes, offering treatment for service users who have been identified on the PD Pathway. Additionally, we offer stability outreach work for those in crisis, social creative groups and 1:1 trauma processing therapy. To staff we offer training, consultation and formulation services primarily to our probation and prison colleagues who work alongside us to support and progress women safely through their sentence plan, in preparation for their move into the community.

You will have experience in working within teams, within multi‑agency settings. Individual and/or Group treatment expertise within the field of Personality Disorder or other complex need is essential. Expertise in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy is desirable (DBT training can be provided). You will be joining an enthusiastic and committed team. The service is part of the national Offender Personality Disorder pathway and supports access to local and national training and networking. We are closely linked to our local mental health team and the post holder would be linked in with the Health & Justice Lead Arts Psychotherapist and other Arts therapists within CNWL.

Main duties of the job

• To deliver Modified Forensic Dialectic Behavioural Therapy to women screened into the OPD pathway, this will include individual and group‑based treatment. To attend and take part in weekly DBT consultation meetings and adhere to DBT principles.
• To support and deliver in the development of therapy within the Options service and co‑facilitate social creative sessions, gender specific specialist arts psychotherapies service for adults, adapting your approach to ensure inclusion of those who are hard to engage owing to complex needs such as current risk or self‑harm and/or violence, cognitive difficulties, emotional withdrawal and psychological disturbance.
• To undertake delivery of individual and group therapy including social creative sessions, outreach support and stabilisation with prisoners at HMP Downview as directed.
• To develop individual formulations and applying theoretical models of the psychology of mental health and personality disorder and offending, to observed behaviour, cognitive, emotional and interpersonal patterns, for service users who present with complex clinical needs.
• To provide clinical supervision to the team’s psychological therapists, Assistant Psychologists and trainees and other members of the team when appropriate.
• To work autonomously within professional guidelines and the overall framework of the service’s policies and procedures.

Working for our organisation

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust is a Top Employer Award Winner and works in partnership to provide responsive and dependable primary care, mental health, intellectual disability and substance misuse services to the diverse and culturally rich communities we serve.

By joining CNWL’s Health & Justice Directorate you will be joining a large department of psychologists and psychological therapists that provide a variety of mental health and OPD services across prisons, the youth estate, secure hospitals and the community. Our staff are dynamic and welcoming and the networking and CPD opportunities are central to our services ethos. We have active research forums and promote our services and work through academic and clinical forums. All staff receive regular supervision and are supported with career aspirations and progression. All of our sites in Surrey offer free use of the onsite leisure facilities and free parking for staff.

Click here to find out more about working within the psychological professions at CNWL and here to see what our Health & Justice staff say about working within our award‑winning teams.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

1. To deliver Modified Forensic Dialectic Behaviorial Therapy to women screened into the OPD pathway, this will include individual and group based treatment. To attend and take part in weekly DBT consultation meetings and adhere to DBT principles.
2. To support and deliver in the development of therapy within the options service and co‑facilitate social creative sessions, gender specific specialist arts psychotherapies service for adults, adapting your approach to ensure inclusion of those who are hard to engage owing to complex needs such as current risk or self harm and/or violence, cognitive difficulties, emotional withdrawal and psychological disturbance.
3. To assess each patient’s suitability for arts psychotherapy and to ascertain from the ongoing evaluation / review their ego strength and tolerance of self and others, while working towards the agreed aims of therapy.
4. To assess risk, manage and adopt appropriate measures to maintain a safe and therapeutically sensitive environment for all when faced with challenging behaviour, for example verbal abuse, deliberate self‑harm, violence, aggression or threatening behaviour. To contribute to the overall team risk assessment.
5. To provide a service to the women within the OPD service to help them adapt to their environment and minimise distress, deterioration and actual and / or perceived threat they pose to themselves and others around them.
6. To contribute specialist knowledge from arts psychotherapy assessment and treatment to the overall formulation and care plans for each patient through contribution to formulation meetings, reviews, clinical meetings and by providing written summaries.
7. To develop and facilitate a range of individual sessions and therapeutic groups within the options treatment and outreach model.
8. To work with patients to understand the content and context of their communication using the arts as a focus.
9. To contribute to training and support for custodial colleagues.
10. To support and participate fully in the work of the multidisciplinary team, including attending team meetings and reflective practice.
11. To maintain accurate patient records on SystmOne including clinical record keeping, specialist reports, data‑collection and CPA in accordance with relevant national and trust policies.
12. To undertake ongoing evaluation of patients’ progress and to manage therapy endings and follow up.
13. To contribute to joint assessments and clinical reviews on patients with members of the multidisciplinary team. To write reports and contribute to the writing of reports as required by MDT processes, including as required reviews, Safeguarding meetings and Public Protection meetings.
14. To actively contribute to a culture of reflective practice within the team and beyond, taking a lead in modelling self‑reflection and self‑awareness in emotionally challenging situations. This could be through co‑facilitation of groups or in staff development forums.
15. To support team members from other disciplines in processing the emotional impact of the work through applying skills and knowledge from own personal psychotherapy and drawing on clinical experience to highlight and not collude with potentially destructive mechanisms of defence.
16. To maintain a high degree of professionalism at all times particularly as the clinical work will frequently involve working alone with service users for substantial periods in intimate and emotionally intense therapy sessions, where behaviour might be uninhibited and self‑care poor.
17. To use sound judgement and interpretative skills to work with the client to understand the content of their engagement and communications and to assess risk.
18. To respond appropriately to situations when there is a threat of physical violence to self or others including florid psychotic symptoms, self‑harm and aggressive or threatening behaviour.
19. To carry out this work under the supervision and guidance of a senior clinician of the same discipline, working closely with therapeutically trained professionals and other team members.
20. To ensure own ethical practice by working within one’s Professional Association’s code of ethics and guidelines for clinical practice and abiding by the Health Care Professions Council’s standards of proficiency and conduct and the Trust’s Confidentiality policies.

Person specification

Education and Qualifications

• MA/MSc or equivalent in art psychotherapy
• Registered with the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC) as an art psychotherapist
• Other related academic qualifications
• Advanced keyboard skills
• Culture awareness training

Previous Experience

• Post‑qualification experience of autonomous working with a relevant client group both in groups and individually
• Experience of working with people with disturbed and challenging behaviour.
• Substantial experience of personal psychotherapy.
• Experience of assessing patients for an arts psychotherapy and making recommendations to a MDT.
• Being Sole Arts Therapist in a MDT
• Experience of negotiating space/therapeutic boundaries in a difficult context
• Evidence of participation in research
• Experience of supervising arts psychotherapists (trainee or qualified).
• Experience of using a trauma informed approach.
• Lived experience of mental health Issues.
• Experience of working in secure settings, either prison or secure hospitals.
• Experience of working within a multicultural framework.

Skills & Knowledge

• High standard of art making and commitment to maintaining skills.
• Skills in planning, organising and prioritising own workload and in working without the involvement of the team in a particular case Knowledge of and skills in assessing patients for arts psychotherapy balancing risk with client needs and service priorities.
• Knowledge of evidence based practice, clinical governance and related knowledge for research and audit.
• Knowledge of legislation and its implications for both clinical practice and professional management in relation to relevant field/s and the full range of client groups.
• Knowledge of current forensic arts psychotherapies research and theories and skills in applying arts psychotherapy theories to work with individuals, groups and organisation.
• Evidence of continuing professional development as required by HCPC.
• Skills in applying art therapy theories to work with individuals, groups and organisation.
• Ability to work with people with complex needs e.g. aggressive / unstable / suicidal patients, including those with personality disorder or a mixed diagnosis.
• Ability to work with non‑verbal patients or patients for whom using English is a major difficulty which could be for cultural reasons, or due to their mental state.
• High standard of verbal communication skills including the ability to provide concise, clear and relevant feedback to a ward round/team meeting.
• Computer literacy and high standard of documented communication skills including the ability to produce clear typed reports detailing progress of therapy, selecting relevant information from sessions and expressing analytical detail without bias.
• Ability to treat service users with respect and dignity at all times, adopting a culturally sensitive approach, which considers the needs of the whole person.
• Ability to build constructive relationships with warmth and empathy, using good communication skills.
• Experience of working with multi‑disciplinary teams.
• Commitment to and enthusiasm for further training opportunities and CPD.
• Trained to use SystmOne.
• Experienced user of P‑NOMIS.
• Ability to assess risk and be able to work face to face with acutely unwell patients without other staff nearby.
• High degree of self awareness, Arts Therapy training and post‑qualifying supervision.
• Ability to work with trauma and contain emotional impact through clinical supervision and team support systems.
• Ability to work with victim/perpetrators who may have distressing personal histories without colluding or over‑identifying.
• Ability to contain and work with organisational stress and ability to ‘hold’ the stress of others.
• Ability to adapt to physical environment when dedicated therapy rooms are not available e.g. transporting art materials / equipment / art instruments etc and willingness to manipulate furniture to set up room (within Health and Safety parameters).
• Fluent in an additional language.
• Ability to learn from experience.
• Able to provide services in a variety of environments as meets the needs of clients.
• Post qualification personal psychotherapy.

Other

• Ability to work to professional guidelines.
• Must be capable of working autonomously with traumatised, severely disturbed, aggressive and/or distressed people for prolonged periods individually and in groups.
• Ability to travel between sites.
• The post holder must have the ability to understand and implement the equal opportunities policy at a level appropriate to the job.
• Ability to promote anti‑discriminatory and anti‑racist practices.
• Ability to promote and work in line with the working model of a 7 day a week service.
• Record of having published in either peer reviewed or academic professional journals and/or books.
• Must demonstrate ability to support the development of the profession through participation in professional bodies and activities.

The successful applicant may have contact with patients or service users. As an NHS Trust we strongly encourage and support vaccination as this remains the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and of course patients and service users when working on our healthcare settings.

Due to the high response levels we receive for some vacancies, we may expire any of them prior to the advertised closing date and advise you to submit your application as soon as possible.

Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. Before submitting your application and to avoid disappointment please check that you are eligible under the UKVI points based system.

Our Agenda for Change employment contracts are subject to a contractual 13 week probationary period.

If you are offered a job, information will be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.

Employer certification / accreditation badges

You must have appropriate UK professional registration.

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service.

Contact Information

Name: Sarah Linturn
Job title: Clinical Lead – OPD Options Service
Email: [e-mail]

You can also find more information on our services and the work we do within the Health & Justice Directorate please do take a look at our new website https://www.cnwl.nhs.uk/health-and-justice