Band 6 Specialist Psychological Practitioner Women’s Service

Job summary

Band 6 Specialist Psychological Practitioner - Ardenleigh Women's Secure Blended Service - 1 X Full time, permanent position

An exciting job opportunity has arisen to recruit a Specialist Psychological Practitioner to join our psychology team at Ardenleigh. Applications welcome from Psychological Professionals, Social Workers, Occupational Therapists and Registered Nurses.

The Women's Secure Blended Service (WSBS) at Ardenleigh has an incredible national reputation, having been a successful pilot site for the blended security model and a key influence in the National Women's Secure Pathway Transformation (WSPT) program. This opportunity offers suitable candidates an interesting and varied role, working within our well respected and embedded psychology team, and comes at an exciting time within the women's secure pathway, with the National WSPT program having just been launched.

Clinically the role will involve working with women presenting with complex trauma, personality disorder and mental illness, both directly through the provision of specialist psychological interventions and indirectly through supervision, reflective practice, consultation and training. The successful candidates will be linked directly to one of our wards, providing an opportunity to develop strong therapeutic relationships with service users and staff and contribute to the psychological safety and containment on the ward.

Main duties of the job

The directorate is committed to investing in staff and you will have opportunities for training, supervision and career development.

You will work within the WSBS at Ardenleigh, as a member of a multi-disciplinary team under the supervision of a registered clinical/forensic psychologist. In your role, you will support the assessment, formulation, and delivery of psychological interventions to address the full range of complex forensic mental health problems. This will involve both individual and group work, as well as potentially working with families. The successful candidate will contribute to the completion of risk assessments and behavioural management plans. Central to the role is working with the wider MDT and ward staff, to support psychological understanding of a person's difficulties, which will involve providing training and supervision, as well as conducting evaluations of interventions.

We are looking for people from a range of diverse backgrounds with an interest in working with, supporting, and enhancing the lives of people who have experienced adverse life experiences, including trauma and neglect, and have a history of offending behaviour. This post is best suited to a professional with a background in teaching, counselling, social work, family work or nursing, who has some prior training and experience of delivering psychological interventions. Prior experience of providing support or supervision to a staff group would also be desirable.

About us

Welcome to Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. Our 4000 clinical and support staff help us to 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 both research and innovation.

Our population is culturally diverse, characterised in places by high levels of deprivation which create an increasing demand for our services and a necessity for us to make sure everyone can access the help they need. We are a team of compassionate, inclusive and committed people working together to provide excellent care to support our community. If you are looking for a place to belong, where you can make a real difference to people's lives, join our team where our warm welcome is waiting for you.

Last verified against our ingestion on 20 October 2026; sponsor register dataset 2026-10-22.