Meet Rebecca, the Principal Forensic Psychologist and Deputy Lead Psychologist for Chadwick Lodge and Eagle Stone View Hospitals. Joining Elysium in 2016 as a qualified Forensic Psychologist, Rebecca has grown leaps and bounds, becoming a Senior Psychologist in 2018, and in 2021 becoming successful in achieving a Principal Psychologist post and becoming Deputy Lead Psychologist in 2023.
Learn more about Rebecca’s impressive career journey, how she has developed through her time at Elysium and what her advice is for someone interested in going into a Psychology career.
What was your career journey? Why did you choose to go into Forensic Psychology?
I did my undergraduate degree first, which was Psychology with English Literature. I mainly did these two things because I loved both topics, I love to read and I love to learn. I’ve always been really curious on how the human mind works: Why we do what we do, and how important context is for this.
I did a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology (PGDip) because my undergraduate degree didn’t have something called the Graduate Basis for Registration (GBR) with the British Psychological Society, which is what you need in order to move forwards in terms of Psychology. If you are thinking of going into a career in Psychology, it is really important to check that your University course has this accreditation or that you are able to complete a Conversion Course at a later date. During my undergraduate degree and the Postgraduate Diploma I learned a lot more about Forensic Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Legal Psychology, and became very, very interested in those.
I went on to study a Master’s degree (MSc) and then a Professional Doctorate in Forensic Psychology (D. Foren.Psy) and gained experience along the way. It’s long and it’s difficult, but I think it’s worth it in the end!
When I was a Forensic Psychologist in Training, I was lucky to have a number of different placements, including working in community settings, doing psych legal work in prisons and for the Parole Board, as well as working in secure hospitals. I think I was so lucky to have such an opportunity, because I’ve always been drawn to mental health focused or clinical forensic aspects of work and my placements helped affirm this.
I really like the variety that working in a secure hospital brings.
It gives me the chance to work with service users over a longer period of time, supporting them to build therapeutic relationships, working with them to assess and formulate their needs, developing their understanding around their previous experiences and where they are now, and supporting them towards change and discharge.
Before working at Chadwick Lodge, I worked for the NHS. I was in a specialist hospital for individuals with complex needs relating to intellectual disability and autism. I have also worked with adolescents and young adults.
Tell us more about your career at Elysium. What does a day in the life look like for you?
As part of my role as Principal Psychologist I’m generally responsible for the female forensic service at Chadwick Lodge, in terms of overseeing the whole service and its development and maintenance, so that is four wards encompassing medium secure and low secure care. I also act as the Ward Psychologist for several wards, and have a key role in supporting the Lead Psychologist and my department as a whole.
One of the things I like about working in secure care is that every day is very different. I think when you’re working somewhere and you know what each day is going to bring, I think you stop sort of learning really in a some ways.
Across the service, we have quite a multimodal approach in terms of thinking about different therapeutic models that we use with our service users. A lot of it comes down to individual need and what works best for that service user. We work with a wide range of service users individually and as groups who might have difficulties relating to mental illness, complex emotional needs or personality disorder, traumatic experiences across their lives, deliberate self-harm and / or violence, difficulties relating to cognitive functioning or intellectual disability, and also substance misuse. It is important that we formulate these difficulties with the service user, conduct thorough assessments, and think about how to best meet their treatment needs. Overall, the service has been underpinned by Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), creating a shared language and understanding across the wards with staff and service users.
Outside of clinical work, I take a key role in multidisciplinary team meetings, liaising with external professionals, taking a key role in decision making and driving forwards service user care and awareness of risk-related issues. Another large part of my role is supervision and mentoring. I provide clinical and co-ordinating supervision for Assistant Psychologists and Psychologists in Training. We also have individuals in our department who are being supported by other training routes, for example, training to become CBT Therapist. I also facilitate reflective practice for wards across the service, and delivering workshops or debriefs to staff if required.
In my role as Principal Psychologist, I also have a large responsibility for service development. This includes thinking about things such as whether we are being as responsive as we could be to the needs of the individuals we care for, and also our colleagues across the hospital in terms of support and collaboration. It also involves thinking about developing new and evidence based individual or group interventions, within the context of wider innovative and responsive care pathways an therapeutic models.
How has Elysium supported your career development?
I’ve been really supported to think about further development, and progression in the field of Psychology. So last year, after 18 months of work, I completed an Apprenticeship and Diploma with the Institute of Leading and Management (ILM) in Operations and Departmental Management. This gave me a different focus on my learning as I continued to progress through my career.
As well as my clinical work, I’ve been given the opportunity to think from a more operational perspective, which has really helped my development.
I think in terms of training, Elysium are very generous in supporting you to access training that’s relevant to your role for example learning different therapies or assessments to support your service users using the best methods.
There is opportunity to try new things. For example a part of my role I really enjoy is that I act as a peer reviewer with the Quality Network for Forensic Mental Health Services, which is part of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. I’m part of a team that reviews other secure services, and those services also come and review us. It’s a collaborative way to ensure that, as medium and low secure hospitals, we’re meeting those standards in terms of providing care and also sharing learning, successes, and new ideas.
What are your plans for the future?
I really want to focus on service development. Thinking about how we can provide more holistic care to our service users. We have been recruiting new staff, and as we get more people joining the department I want to refresh how we do things and how we can work more effectively. I think that’s important to me personally. I’m really interested in Compassion Focused Therapy and trauma focused ways of working, so I aim to develop a care pathway informed by these approaches. Watch this space! I am also an EMDR Therapist, so I’d love to be able to do more of that and bring the two together.
I’m really enjoying my Deputy Lead Psychologist role as well, so I’m looking forward to supporting different areas of the hospital and learning a lot about how psychology can play an important role within that.
I have recently been appointed as a Specialist Member of the First-Tier Tribunal in the Health, Education and Social Care Chamber(Mental Health). This entails using my knowledge of mental health and risk to work as part of an independent legal panel to make decisions about individuals who have applied through a legal process to come out of hospital. It’s something I’m really proud of, and I’m looking forward to taking this forwards in the future – learning a lot about decision-making, legislation and the law, and also bringing this back to my clinical practice at Chadwick Lodge.
What would be your advice be for someone looking to get into Psychology as a career?
You need a lot of drive and motivation. It can be a very difficult or competitive area to get into, and I think understandably a lot of people can be quite disheartened by that. But there are many different ways to move forwards, and I think if you know that’s what you want then that is what you need to keep working on.
I think the first thing I would say is if you are studying psychology and you think that it’s a field you want to go into in the future, it’s never too early to think about how you’re going to do that. It’s never too early to think about different kinds of experience that you can get or that you might need. It’s never too early to reach out to people already working in that field. I get emails from students or people looking for work experience or Assistant Psychologist roles, and generally people are very willing to offer advice or support. I’m not sure how much universities focus on career opportunities and ways to develop these as part of undergraduate courses nowadays (it’s been a little while for me!) but don’t be afraid to ask and to explore.
Quite often to get into psychology, the Assistant Psychologist role is seen as the end goal – almost like the gold standard way of getting into it. To get into those roles you do frequently need some historical experience and further education. But I think what I would say is that experience in the field of Psychology can come in such a wide variety of forms: through volunteering, working in a mental health hospital as a Healthcare Assistant, through personal experience, and also research experience. You need to think about what you are currently doing, what your interests are, and how that links to core roles of what a Qualified Psychologist actually does.
I think being as prepared as possible is good advice, and always looking for more information and opportunities. There are number of different fields of Psychology, and ways to enter these fields and employment opportunities are growing all the time. The British Psychological Society has a lot of information about this on their website. As well as Clinical Psychology being an available option, Forensic Psychology is a rapidly growing area and has many valuable opportunities (I am biased of course). You’ve also got Counselling Psychology, Health Psychology, and Occupational Psychology to name but a few – all of which have excellent opportunities for development and furthering your goals. So don’t just limit yourself by thinking about one option. Think what else is out there! What fits around your interests and personality? What makes you the most excited to work with? What client or service user populations are you interested in working with, and what skills do you have that would help with this?
Generally I think for a career in Psychology you’d be looking to be very driven, I think very personable and being able to have that curious and inquisitive approach – that curious, non-judgmental approach when interacting with other people. You need to be compassionate – caring and recognising the suffering in others, but not afraid to challenge when you have to. You need to have a good sense of yourself, and what your strengths are.
Feeling inspired and ready to take that next step? Take a look on our careers page for all our live Psychology role opportunities.
Is a Career in Psychology Right for You?
If you have a deep interest in understanding human behaviour, enjoy helping others navigate challenges, and have strong listening and problem-solving skills, then psychology could be the perfect career path for you. From clinical and counselling psychology to research and organisational roles, there’s a psychology career that fits your passion.
As an Elysium Psychologist you’ll develop expertise in mental health, behaviour analysis, and therapeutic techniques while making a meaningful impact on people’s lives. A career in psychology is insightful, fulfilling, and ever-evolving. If you’re ready to support others in achieving mental well-being, we’d love to hear from you.