Overview
Our two men’s medium secure inpatient services, Reaside and Tamarind Centre, are seeking four Band 8A Practitioner Psychologists to join our team: three permanent positions (two at Tamarind, one at Reaside) and one fixed-term maternity cover at Tamarind. We warmly encourage newly qualified Band 7 practitioners interested in forensic settings to apply, offering structured preceptorship and supervision to support progression. Experienced psychologists interested in forensic inpatient work are also warmly welcomed.
Responsibilities
As part of our multi-disciplinary team, you will provide safe, connected psychological care to individuals with complex presentations—many with histories of trauma, neglect, and offending. Our approach is recovery-focused, balancing therapeutic work with effective risk management. We support service users to understand their mental health and offending behaviours while fostering their recovery. In this role, you will contribute meaningfully to service development, research, and therapeutic excellence within a supportive environment. Regular clinical, managerial, and model-specific group supervision offers space to reflect and grow professionally, including spaces to develop forensic practice and knowledge of models of offending.
Qualifications and Skills
* Bring integrity, warmth, and resilience in working with diverse, complex populations and be passionate about collaborative, trauma-informed, recovery-focused care.
* Are eager to use and develop skills across psychological models such as CBT, CAT, EMDR, DBT, Compassion Focused Therapy, Schema Therapy, and ACT.
* Are familiar with structured clinical judgement tools and psychometric assessment.
Professional Environment
Our work supports quality improvement and research, and there are opportunities to develop your forensic practice and knowledge of offending. Our workstreams focus on family and carer involvement, addressing health inequalities, and enhancing trauma-informed care. Working within SCOH requires emotional resilience, confidence, and dedication. We prioritise both service user needs and staff well-being through robust support.
How We Support You
Regular supervision—clinical, managerial, and model-specific—provides opportunities to reflect and grow within a supportive environment. This includes supervision for CBT (including ACT), CAT, DBT, EMDR, and Compassion Focused Therapy, with spaces to advance forensic practice and understanding of offending models.
Join Us
If you’re looking for a role where you can bring your whole self to work, grow within a thoughtful and skilled team, and make a meaningful difference, we’d be delighted to hear from you. We warmly invite you to get in touch for a visit or informal conversation. If you are passionate about delivering excellent, innovative NHS care within forensic mental health, we encourage you to apply and join our compassionate, evolving services.
Working for our Organisation
Welcome to Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. Our 4,000 clinical and support staff help us improve mental health wellbeing and meet the needs of the 70,000 people we serve each year. We provide a range of mental healthcare services across Birmingham and Solihull, as well as specialised services nationally. We also offer medical, nursing and psychology training and are proud of our international reputation for research and innovation.
Our population is culturally diverse and can be highly deprived in places, creating increasing demand for our services and ensuring access to help for everyone. We are a team of compassionate, inclusive, and committed people working together to provide excellent care. If you are looking for a place to belong where you can make a real difference, join our team. Our Trust is committed to treating individuals fairly and ensuring equal opportunities for all staff and service users, even if this means doing things differently for different people.
The Trust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Pre-employment checks will be undertaken. You may be required to undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check; cases of criminal record history are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. If applicable for your role, you will cover the cost of your DBS certificate, deducted from salary over 3 months, and you will need to sign up to the DBS Update Service before commencement. The Trust will reimburse this and you will be contractually obliged to maintain your subscription. All successful applicants will complete the Trust’s induction programme. Fundamental (Statutory and Mandatory) training will be in an e-learning format, with modules online (approximately 9–14 hours depending on post) required by the end of the second week.
If you are shortlisted, we may contact you via email with interview details. Please check your email regularly after the position has closed. Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. However, please ensure this role meets the eligibility criteria for sponsorship. Non-UK/Republic of Ireland candidates can assess sponsorship likelihood here: Browse: Work in the UK – GOV.UK. The minimum salary threshold for Health and Social Care is £25,000 and for the Skilled Worker route is £38,700; if starting salary is below this, sponsorship may not be possible.
Overseas applicants must present a criminal records certificate from each country they have resided in for 12 months or more in the past 10 years. Guidance is available here: Criminal records checks for overseas applicants – GOV.UK. Relocation expenses may be reimbursed up to £8,000, subject to eligibility.
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