Are you a highly motivated and enthusiastic Art Therapist with experience working in a mental health setting with men or women with personality disorder, mental illness, or a learning disability? You will be key in promoting and developing the mental, emotional, physical and social wellbeing of service users at Thornford Park Hospital.

Thornford Park Hospital is 142 bedded Forensic Mental Health Hospital. At Thornford Park Hospital, we provide comprehensive personalised assessment and treatment programmes for men and women with mental illness/complex care needs as well as those with a learning disability within our Medium & Low Secure services. Service users may have histories of offending and/or may have failed in previous placements.

Thornford Park Psychology team is one of the largest Psychology teams among Forensic Mental health hospitals with Qualified Psychologists, Art therapists, Dramatherapists and Speech and Language Therapists. The team is well supported by team of Assistant Psychologists. The skills and experience within the team provide a great opportunity for learning in Forensic mental health.

As an Art Therapist you will plan, provide and develop a service for service users including assessment, treatment and evaluation of individual and group-based treatment.

Working 30 hours a week you will maintain a high quality in all areas of practice including effective team working, using a range of evidence-based approaches, ensuring adherence to national guidelines, legislation, organisational protocols, procedures, policies, standards and systems.

At Elysium, we want the best for you. That’s why you will have continuous access to a range of training courses to enable you to reach your career goals. After all, a better you, means better care. That’s what delivering great healthcare should feel like.

As an Art Therapist, you will be:

• Offering specialist treatment for those who would benefit from psychological therapy but find primarily verbal psychotherapy difficult to access (e.g. thought disorder, cognitive difficulties, emotional withdrawal, language problems, etc).
• Assessing referred patients with respect to planning an Art therapy intervention treatment taking into account risk factors, and complexity of presentation, patient’s need, and service priorities.
• Contributing specialist knowledge from your assessment and treatment to the overall care plan for each patient through contribution to clinical meetings (ward rounds, CPAs, tribunals) via written reports, as well as verbal feedback to the ward teams.
• Supporting the team in conducting research, audit and evaluation, particularly in areas of clinical relevance that are aimed at improving quality of service and outcomes.

To be successful in this role you will need:

• Registration with the HCPC
• Experience (either pre-training, on training, or subsequently) of working with clients with complex needs that are relevant to the population in the service area.
• Experience of managing emotive situations
• The post holder will maintain appropriate registration with the HCPC

Where you will be working

Location: Thornford Park, Crookham Hill, Thatcham,

Berkshire, RG19 8ET

You will work at Thornford Park which is a combination of medium secure and low secure units and rehabilitation flats. The service provides a seamless internal care pathway supporting and empowering patients in their recovery and rehabilitation.

You will work alongside the multidisciplinary to provide personalised assessment and treatment programmes for males with mental illness/ complex care needs as well as those with personality disorder. Service users may have histories of offending and/or may have failed in previous placements.