AP - HMP Send PIPE Service Interview Prep

Tell us about yourself

I'm a psychology graduate with over two years' experience in mental health triage, assessment and intervention, and three years in psychological research.

Clinically, I've worked as a Mental Health Worker conducting risk assessments with people in acute crisis, and as a Honorary Assistant Psychologist administering psychometric tests. I've also delivered group neurorehabilitation interventions for people with traumatic brain injury.

 I'm now looking to bring that combination of clinical, research and administrative skill into a health justice setting, and to work towards my long-term goal of training as a Clinical Psychologist.

Reflection: What I've taken from this journey is that good psychological practice isn't just about the intervention itself but working collaboratively, factoring in the whole individual including their history and learning how you build trust with someone who may have every reason not to trust services.

What makes you a good candidate

Situation/Task: What drew me specifically to PIPE Services at CNWL was the focus on personalised, evidence-based support for women in prison with personality disorders.

This reflects the trauma-informed, person-centred approach I've developed through both clinical and research work — for example, adapting interventions and assessments for clients with learning disabilities and complex needs as I did at Headway devon, and delivering trauma-informed psychoeducation in crisis work, working with people with personality disorders, especially EUPD/BPD.

Result: I believe my combination of skills and experiences align well with how PIPE approaches this client group — means I can contribute meaningfully from day one while continuing to develop my skills.

How do you embody the trust's values in your work

As a Mental Health Worker, I frequently conducted assessments with clients presenting in high emotional distress, sometimes with verbal hostility.

I remained calm and patient with service users and communicated openly and collaboratively to ensure they understood the service admission and intervention process. By adopting a person centred approach, I was able to support clients whilst giving care and respect to their experiences that let them to the service. Following this, I produced clear, high-standard reports to inform clinical decision-making, and consistently used supervision to strengthen my formulation and risk management.

 "For me these values aren't abstract they show up in this line of work, through communication, care and colalboration."

What do you think is the specific contribution an Assistant Psychologist brings to this team

An Assistant Psychologist sits at a specific and valuable point in the team: close enough to day-to-day client contact to gather rich, direct clinical information,

but working under supervision so that this is always quality-assured by a qualified psychologist.

I experienced this as an honorary assistant psychologist at SLAM. Where I gained direct experience in conducting assessments, evaluating risk, supporting formulation, research and audit, and bridging communications between service users, clinicians, colleagues and other teams.

In effect, the AP role increases the team's overall capacity and richness of information, while also being a developmental training role — I'd see my job as adding value now and being trained by the team for the future.

What challenges do you expect working with this population

Working with a population of women in prison with personality disorders may present some challenges. high emotional distress, and interactions can occasionally involve verbal hostility, ambivalence/non-engagement towards services and can present with complex trauma histories  

I've encountered this in MHW work, during risk assessments I remained calm and professional using a structured and patient approach, my experience working with SU's with personality disorders.

This taught me the importance on transparency and building of open but boundaried relationships for this purpose. I have navigated difficulties of engagement with empathy and patience, allowing for clients to make collaborative decisions about their care that can be important for engagement.

I don't think these challenges are a reason to hesitate, they're exactly why I want to be well-supervised in this specific setting, and why I've already sought out experience with high distress and hostility in my previous roles, rather than avoided it."

Experience of working as part of a team

As a Nightline volunteer, I worked night shifts with a small team.

We collaborated to support each other through difficult calls and planned our time to ensure continuous coverage.

This fostered strong teamwork and deepened my understanding of mental health recovery models.

I further applied this to my work as a HAP where I needed to contribute to multidisciplinary meetings and communicate clinical information while also delivering my own assessment workload.

Action: I actively participated in team discussions, shared assessment findings in a way that was accessible to colleagues from different professional backgrounds.

Result: This built my confidence working within a team hierarchy, understanding different professional perspectives, and contributing to shared decision-making — skills I would bring directly into the PIPE MDT, where collaborative, joined-up working with prison and healthcare staff is essential.

What is a case formulation, and how have you used this in practice

Working with clients with learning disabilities and complex needs in mental health crisis I needed an individualised understanding of their difficulties beyond a diagnostic label, to design an accessible CBT-informed intervention.

Action: I applied psychological models (such as the 4 Ps) to formulate why specific situations triggered distress for that person — considering their understanding of the situation, communication needs, and emotional processing style.

Result: This produced a more accessible, tailored intervention that reduced stigma and improved engagement.

For Personality disorder diagnoses can carry significant stigma, and can obscure the individual story behind the presentation. A formulation-led approach allows the team to understand each woman's presentation in the context of her own history and current environment, rather than reducing her to a label.

Your understanding of risk assessment tools (e.g. HCR-20, RSVP) and how they're used in forensic settings

Though I haven't yet used HCR-20 or RSVP directly in practice, I understand their structure and purpose, and I have direct experience of the underlying skill — structured risk assessment and documentation — from my MHW role.

Assessing risk of violence and risk of sexual violence are important measures for both client and staff safety. As a mental health worker I would use CORE 10 or qualitatively assess current or historical risks.

I'd want to develop familiarity with the specific tools used at PIPE, and I'm keen to build this competency through training and close supervision, as I've done with other structured measures.

"I see risk assessment tools as one part of a wider formulation — they structure information, but the clinical skill is in integrating that with the individual's story, which is exactly the kind of formulation-led thinking I want to keep developing.

Research skills — basic knowledge of databases, research skills and methodology

My MSc research project was a randomised controlled trial within South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, testing a novel therapeutic modality for depression.

Task: I was responsible for supporting the study from ethics and design through to dissemination, including working directly with patients to assess eligibility and train them in the intervention.

Action: Across this and several Research Assistant posts, I have recruited participants, obtained informed consent, collected quantitative data, and conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews and focus groups — including with people discussing sensitive mental health experiences using a trauma-informed approach throughout. I am proficient in statisitcal and database packages, and in electronic patient record/database systems.

Result: This has given me a sound understanding of the research pipeline, including into sucessfulpublications and I am keen to bring embedding research into PIPE's clinical practice.

Experience working with people with disabilities / complex needs in a health or mental health setting

At Headway Devon, I delivered strength-based group interventions, including physical and cognitive tasks, for clients with traumatic brain injuries.

Task: I needed to adapt my communication style and regulate my own responses when the environment became highly emotive, while ensuring the intervention remained accessible and effective.

Action: I adapted my language, pace and approach to each individual's needs, and drew on a person-centred, trauma-informed framework, and worked to reduce stigma and improve accessibility for clients with comorbid physical and psychological conditions.

Result: Clients were able to engage meaningfully with the intervention despite complex presentations, and I developed a flexible, individualised style of working — directly relevant to supporting women in prison with personality disorders and complex, intersecting needs.

Physical skills/ risk de-escalation

In my neurorehabilitation and crisis-related roles, I have worked with clients who were, on occasion, highly distressed or verbally hostile.

Task: While I have not yet completed formal PMVA (Prevention and Management of Violence and Aggression) training, I needed to manage these situations safely.

As a MHW I was supporting a client who presented with high risk of self harm and suicidality. Within the session, they became quite distressed both emotionally and physically. I firstly ensured we were in a spacious and private environment, where we could talk about the emotions behind their distress. I used verbal de-escalation techniques, calmly asked questions and empathised with their situation, allowing for silences as needed. I opted for collaborative decision making due to their risk presentation and communicated openly about concerns that would need to be raised to my supervisor and next steps to keep them safe.

Resulting in successful de-escalation and safeguarding.

I am committed to completing formal PMVA training to further strengthen my physical and practical skills in responding to risk within a secure PIPE setting, building on this existing foundation of calm, safe practice

Experience of teaching other health professionals

In my current Research Assistant role, I supervise, teach and train the wider research team, including clinical and academic colleagues.

I led training sessions, prepared materials, and supported colleagues one-to-one where needed to teach about our research process and methodology, adapting my teaching style to different levels of prior knowledge and professional background.

Result: This strengthened the team's research capability and my own confidence in teaching and knowledge-sharing — a skill I would bring to training or upskilling colleagues within the PIPE service.

Trust values

Throughout my clinical and academic career, I have worked to embody respect, compassion, and open, collaborative working with service users. As Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer during my undergraduate degree, I was specifically tasked with improving how diversity of gender, race and lived experience was reflected in academic content.

Action: I gathered student feedback and worked with academic staff to update lecture content accordingly, deepening my understanding of power, discrimination and cultural diversity.

I have carried these values into every clinical setting since, including with marginalised or vulnerable groups.This has shaped a consistent, values-led approach to my work — respect, high standards and collaboration — which closely mirrors CNWL's Trust values and which I would bring directly into PIPE's work with women in prison.

Governance, rights and practices in AP role

In my HAP role at PICUP,

I used client centred language- to validate experiences of individuals with psychosis whilst acknowledging the stigma clinical language has in relation to psychosis symptoms.

At the beginning of assessments I would always ensure clients were provided with information about the assessment and verbally consent to the questions that would be asked, of course this was always done flexibly and clients could decline to answer questions if they did not feel comfortable.

I would also explain the confidentiality of the assessment, that details of the assessment would only be shared with myself and my supervisor, unless particular issues of risk to self, others or from others were mentioned, which I would inform them that I would need to consult with my supervisor/ team or break confidentiality in the case of immediate risk that required safeguarding.

In doing so, this created a respectful and informed environment where collaboration was key to ensuring clients could communicate their difficulties in a safe confidential space.