HMPPS Band 6 Research Officer – OPD Pathway

Overview

We are looking to recruit 2x Research Officers on a 2-year fixed term basis, working on evidence and evaluation for the OPD Pathway, as part of the OPD Pathway Data & Evaluation team. This role will primarily focus on producing high quality, robust evidence to inform our learning around the quality and impact of OPD Pathway services. The role will broadly involve writing evidence summaries and working on research, evaluation and analysis projects for the OPD programme in line with the programme’s research and evaluation strategy.

What is the OPD Pathway?

The Offender Personality Disorder (OPD) Pathway is a long-term change programme, providing a set of psychologically informed services operating across criminal justice and health. It aims to reduce risk associated with serious re-offending and improve mental health within a high-risk, high-harm cohort likely to meet the clinical threshold for a diagnosis of ‘personality disorder’.

The OPD Pathway is a jointly funded partnership between His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and NHS England. Rather than one single entity, it provides series of connected interventions and activities. Individuals can access one or more of these services based on their individual intervention and management needs and to support them through their sentence.

Data & Research within the OPD Pathway

The OPD Pathway has been set up as a ‘demonstrator’ initiative; and as such is committed to robust evaluation; to achieve high quality services and find out ‘what works’ in respect to these new approaches to interventions for a highly complex group. The OPD Pathway is complex, providing further challenges to evaluation in addition to those that are often faced by real-world research.

The data & evaluation team sits within the OPD Pathway team but with strong links to the wider HMPPS & MoJ Evidence and Analytics teams.