Psychology Service
Irish Prison Psychology Service
The Irish Prison Psychology Service is made up of a team of psychologists who provide a range of assessment and psychological interventions to men and women in custody (aged 18 – 80+).
Psychologists work with a variety of different presentations, including Mood and Anxiety (Inc. Bi-polar Disorder), Personality Difficulties, (complex) Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Self-Harm and Suicidal Behaviour, Eating Disorders, Psychosis and Schizophrenia, Addiction, as well as offence-specific work including violence, sexual violence, domestic violence interventions. In addition to the above presentations, psychologists work with neurodiverse people, and people presenting with developmental disorders, intellectual difficulties, cognitive decline and traumatic brain injuries.
Psychologists work within a broad clinical and operational multi-disciplinary team (MDT) across the prison estate. As part of their work, Psychologists have regular contact with community agencies involved in the support and resettlement of people leaving custody (e.g. the HSE, NGO’s and private organisations). They also work with the families and carers of those in custody. Where clinically appropriate, Psychologists provide time-limited community intervention(s) to support the transition of people from custody to the community.
Our team
The Irish Prison Psychology Service is made up of a Head of Psychology, a Principal Psychologist Manager, 14 Senior Psychologist posts, 23.4 Psychologist posts and 14 Assistant Psychologists (APs) who are employed on a two-year contract. Each prison typically has a local psychology service made up of a Senior Psychologist, Psychologists and Assistant Psychologist(s).
Dr Sarah Hume is our Head of Psychology, Dr Clare Kambamettu is our Principal Psychologist Manager and Dr Ken Murphy is our Principal Specialist Psychologist.
Dr Sarah Hume, Head of Psychology
Dr Ken Murphy, Principal Specialist Psychologist
Dr Clare Kambamettu, Acting Principal Psychologist Manager
Psychological therapies and programmes
IPS Psychologists work within an integrated, layered care delivery model, a summary of which is available here. This model incorporates a number of evidence-based interventions for mental health and offending behaviour. This includes the following:
Motivational programmes:
Pathways to Change Programme: The goal is to helps people who have a history of violent behaviour. by raising awareness of the risk factors that led to offending, and help people to understand their behaviour and take an active role in their rehabilitation.
Pathway to Understanding Programme: The aim of this group is to help people to recognise what positive changes they wish to bring into your life, as well as to develop trust and confidence in being part of a group.
Building Identity Programme: Designed specifically for young people in custody (ages 18-24), this programme support people to understand what happened to them, what brought them to custody, and what areas of risk, need and strengths they need to focus on throughout their sentence and through to the community.
Mental Health
Primary Care Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) aims to help deal with overwhelming problems in a more positive way by breaking them down into smaller parts. It shows how to change these negative patterns to improve the way they feel. CBT deals with their current problems, rather than focusing on issues from the past. It looks for practical ways to improve how people think and feel on a daily basis.
Secondary Care: These individual sessions can help with mental health problems such as moderate to severe depression and anxiety, personality difficulties, post-traumatic stress disorder, self-harm, addiction, or offence-related work. Various evidence based interventions are offered depending on the needs of the person, including Cognitive Behavioural and Dialectical Behaviour-informed therapy as well as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR): An 8-week program that teaches mindfulness techniques to help with stress, anxiety, depression, and pain.
Mental Health Workshops: These are educational workshops on topics such as anxiety, sleep problems, depression, trauma, adjusting to prison life, understanding distress, and preparing for release.
Alexithymia Group: This programme helps people to identify, name, and manage their emotions. It is designed for people who find it difficult to understand and express their feelings.
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT); This programme helps people who struggle to control their emotions. It was originally created for those dealing with self-harm and suicidal thoughts. The goal of the programme is to teach skills for handling emotions, dealing with stress, and improving relationships.
Specialist Programmes
Mentalisation Based Therapy: this helps participants to understand their own thoughts and feelings, as well as the thoughts and feelings of others, and will help them to avoid misunderstandings. Learning these skills can help to improve relationships, reduce anger and violence, and improve mental health.
Group Radical Openness (GRO): This programme is for people who have trouble showing emotions, and tend to keep their feelings hidden. They may also like to stay in control of things and keep others at a distance. This coping style often starts early in life as a way to feel safe, but can lead to loneliness in later life. This programme aims to improve relationships by connecting with others and themselves, become more flexible in their thinking, easing strict rules and high standards & learn to express and handle emotions in a safe way.
Healthy Relationships & Sexuality Group: This programme creates a safe space to talk about sexual consent and healthy sexual relationships. It will help them develop skills and knowledge to have healthy, consensual sexual relationships.
Understanding My Offence Programme; The aim of this group is to help people to develop a better understanding of the factors in their life that contributed to their offending, and to support them in moving forwards to develop positive and realistic future plans and skills.
Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT): This for people who struggle with feelings of shame and being too hard on themselves. It helps them learn to be kinder to themselves and understand their problems differently. Participants can face their difficulties and work towards feeling better. It focuses on practicing self-compassion and changing self-critical thinking patterns.
Other duties
Psychologists are also involved in case consultation, and/or risk management, where therapeutic work is contra-indicated or all programmes have been completed where risks remain, or they may refer people in custody onto other services (e.g. addiction, psychiatry, work training). Psychologists also provide formal offence-related risk assessments, preparation of Parole Board reports, , organisational policy and strategy development and Recruit Prison Officer training.
Research
The Irish Prison Psychology Service is guided by evidence-based practices to offer the highest standard of care. We also contribute to the evidence body by ensuring outcome measurement and conducting research that furthers the understanding of ‘what works’ in prison settings. Psychologists are actively involved in conducting, facilitating and supervising research, with the support of the Care and Rehabilitation Research Unit. More information about the Research Unit, and publications which psychologists have contributed to are available here.
Training and development
The Irish Prison Psychology Service is committed to providing high-quality in-house supervision and prides itself on its Continual Professional Development (CPD) programme, so that the wide range of assessment and interventions offered are delivered to the highest standard.
CPD includes routine service-wide training in Mentalisation Based Therapy (MBT) with the Anna Freud Centre, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Skills training, Historical Clinical Risk-20v3 (HCR-20v3) and Spousal Assault Risk Assessment (SARA) training, and other general and specialist CPD events such as supervision skills training, working with autism in a forensic setting and understanding Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.
Joining the team
If you are interested in joining our Irish Prison Psychology Service we would love to hear from you. Please contact us at info@irishprisons.ie
Qualifications Required to be a Psychologist in the Irish Prison Service
A professional postgraduate qualification in Clinical or Counselling Psychology recognised by the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) is required. Applicants with qualifications obtained outside of Ireland must obtain a statement of equivalence in Clinical Psychology from the Department of Health (see below in relation to payment of the application fee).
Potential applicants should note:
Incremental credit is provided by the IPS.
Candidates who are considering relocating to Ireland and may have queries or concerns relating to the current Irish validation process, please note the Irish Prison Psychology Service can provide support in relation to this application during your locum contract, including subsidising the application fee of €500. With this support, the statement of equivalence must be achieved within a period of 12 months of starting a locum contract.
The Irish Prison Service engage in an annual recruitment drive for permanent psychologists, typically beginning in May/June of each year. Please visit our recruitment page.
Locum Psychologists are employed year-round and those interested should contact CPL Healthcare ips@cplhealthcare.com
Qualifications Required to become an Assistant Psychologist
A recruitment campaign is held in approximately April each year. Upon application, candidates must have:
- A recognised qualification at minimum Level 8 (1st or 2nd class honours) on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) or relevant conversion course(s) or (a NARIC Ireland Foreign Qualifications equivalent) in Psychology. Candidates’ Psychology qualification(s) should deem them eligible to hold graduate membership of the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) or the British Psychological Society (BPS).
And have either
- (a) A minimum of 96 days’ recent work experience (within the last 3 years) in a clinical setting and/or with a marginalised and/or vulnerable client population (this can include full or part time, paid or voluntary work).
OR
(b) A recognised qualification at Level 9 on the NFQ (Master’s Degree) (or NARIC Ireland Foreign Qualifications equivalent) in Psychology or be currently undertaking same*.
Occupational Therapy
The Irish Prison Service employs an Occupational Therapist Manager. Occupational Therapy input within the prison environment can support people maintaining their level of functioning with every day functioning to enable a person to achieve better health and wellbeing and to develop new skills to support safe transitions through prison to safely resettle in the community.
The Occupational Therapist Manager works with people to understand their current level of functioning within regard to engaging in everyday living activities such as activities of daily living, work, education, exercise, self-care, social activities, and relationships. This enables people in custody to engage in meaningful activity, to engage in a healthy balance of meaningful activities that supports people’s wellbeing, to lead happier, healthier lives, and enables them to develop and maintain a wide range of skills and supports self-confidence and self-esteem
Other Therapeutic Services
Samaritans
The Irish Prison Service work with suicide prevention charity, Samaritans to support the mental health needs of people in custody through their phone line and through the delivery of the ‘Listener Scheme’ across the prison estate.
In relation to the Listeners Scheme, volunteers from the Samaritans train people in custody to offer peer-to-peer support to other inmates in need. During 2025 more than 3,200 Listener contacts were made, with Listeners supporting others for over 1,300 hours.
Samaritans is also one of the freely available numbers on the in-cell telephony in a number of prisons, providing support to people who are struggling to cope.
Alternative to Violence Project
The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) operates within the Irish Prison Service, aiming to equip people in custody with conflict resolution skills to reduce violence and promote positive change. AVP is a volunteer-led initiative that offers structured workshops focusing on communication, empathy and non-violent problem solving.
Rape Crisis Centre
The Rape Crisis Centre provides counselling to people who have experienced sexual violence, primarily in the Dochas Centre and Limerick Female Prison. The Rape Crisis Centre works to heal the trauma of sexual violence.
