Potential Procurement of Forensic Psychologist Training Routes

Tender description

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is an agency within the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Its role is to commission and provide services in the community and in custody ensuring best value for money from public resources. Psychologists have been directly employed by Her Majesty's Prison Service and the National Probation Service for many years. At the time of writing NOMS employs over 600 psychologists, of whom 250+ are in training. Practicing Qualified Psychologists are required to be on a statutory register with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) under Section 60 of the Health Professions Act 2000. NOMS is considering conducting a 2 strand procurement exercise for the provision of bespoke training routes for its trainee forensic psychologists in England and Wales. Strand 1 - Provision of circa 64 HCPC accredited routes to qualification (duration up to 3 years but general expectation to complete training in 2 years): Qualified Registered Psychologists with the HCPC must have proved their competence beyond MSc Level in the following 3 Core Competencies of Psychologists: Clinical Assessment and Intervention; Communication of Psychological Knowledge and Training and Development. Practice experience: In addition to the requirements of the HCPC criteria NOMS would expect the programme of study to follow a logical process that weights the different elements of competency appropriately. This would provide a staged and effective training experience to develop confidence and competence within the Trainee's cohort. The format will allow for a minimum of 360 days of supervised practice to be completed in the HCPC qualifying period. Strand 2 - Provision of circa 25 Top-Up to Practice Doctorate & BPS Chartership / Full Membership of DFP (duration up to 2 years but general expectation for trainees to complete in 18 months): It is also expected that the MoJ will require the facility for existing trainees who have reached HCPC registration to gain a Practice Doctorate in Forensic Psychology that will allow for full Membership of the Division of Forensic Psychology and Chartership with the British Psychological Society. This will require trainees to produce a research dissertation of Doctorial and Publishable standard and lead to the Doctoral qualification. To support trainees in producing the standard of research exemplar required, all trainees are required to have access from the provider to: a) 12 hours of teaching (remote methods acceptable) on research design and methodology. b) 12 hours of teaching (remote methods acceptable) on data analysis suitable for this level of research, both quantitative and qualitative. c) 6 hours of teaching on 'effective applications for research and ethics approval'. d) 6 hours teaching on 'planning for publication of research'. e) minimum of 10 hours academic supervision over the life of their research project. f) at least 1 full review of the final draft project with constructive feedback.