Geraldine is a Chartered and HCPC Registered Forensic Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has worked for the prison service since 1999 assessing risk and providing treatment to men convicted of violent and sexual offences and with complex needs and she currently works as the Therapy Manager on the Enhanced Assessment Unit at HMP Grendon. She has been a Trustee for the Safer Living Foundation since July 2017.

Geraldine was awarded a PhD by the University of Birmingham in 2015. She was appointed an Honorary Professor at Cardiff Metropolitan University in 2018 and is a visiting Lecturer at the University of Birmingham and Cardiff Metropolitan University. 

Geraldine was presented with the Senior Practitioner Award by the Division of Forensic Psychology 2018 for distinguished contribution to Forensic Psychology.

Contact - [email protected]

This post is currently vacant. 

Neil is a Regional Lead Psychologist within HMPPS and a Lecturer on the MSc Forensic Psychology and Mental Health at the University of Manchester.  In addition, he is a Registrar and Chief Supervisor for the BPS Qualification in Forensic Psychology. 

Neil's clinical experience has been in secure services including High, Medium and Low Secure Mental Health settings with male and female clients, including adults and young people.  His current role is working in Prisons. 

Neil's areas of specialist interest are offending behaviour assessment and interventions, psychological formulation, organisational culture, consultancy and training in forensic settings, qualitative research, rehabilitative culture, and staff-prisoner relationships.

Biographical information TBA.

Rachael has been a Chartered and Registered Forensic Psychologist since 2004, with 20 years’ experience working with a variety of forensic client groups residing in and out of custody. 

Rachael is currently employed by HMPPS and located in the Midlands. 

Rachael's areas of specialist interest are risk assessment, developing and delivering interventions for individual who commit stalking offences, providing risk management advice and consultancy regarding stalking offences.

Laura is a Practitioner Psychologist (Chartered and HCPC Registered) with 15 years’ experience working with a variety of individuals and teams.

Laura's clinical experience includes HMPPS, NHS mental health, and community settings with male and female clients, including adults, young people and infants. Her current role is based within a community team considering the importance of attachment between mothers and infants. Laura also has a role within private practice and court settings, along with sitting as an independent psychologist member of the Parole Board. She is also studying her PhD at Nottingham Trent University, and a co-founder of the 'Let’s Talk Forensic Psychology' YouTube Channel. In 2019, she awarded a Butler Trust Award for her work in psychology.

Laura's areas of specialist interest are trauma informed approaches, attachment based models, risk and protective assessments, therapeutic communities, qualitative research, and complex personalities.

Michelle Smith is a BPS chartered and HCPC registered Forensic Psychologist at the University of Lincoln, undertaking teaching, research and professional practice consultancy. She has provided Forensic Psychology services across HMPPS, NHS, University and independent organisations as well as private practice for 25 years. Areas of forensic practice include risk assessment, intervention, supervision and consultancy. She has expertise in working with individuals in the criminal justice, health and social care sector experiencing trauma and related personality or mental health difficulties. Her special interest is the training and development of professional competencies for forensic, health and social care staff including provision of supervision and reflective practice and promotion of resilience and professional boundaries. She is currently the CPD lead on the BPS Division of Forensic Psychology Committee.

Biographical information to follow. 

Kate is a HCPC registered forensic psychologist, BPS chartered psychologist, and Associate Fellow of the BPS. Kate has experience working in prisons, the community and secure hospitals with both perpetrators and victims of crime. Her areas of expertise include the assessment and rehabilitation of people who offend and working with complex trauma. She currently works in a YOI prison with young adult men with emerging personality difficulties and complex needs linked to their offending. Kate also undertakes risk assessments to inform parole board proceedings. She is a visiting lecturer at the University of Birmingham and Coventry University.  Kate is passionate about raising the profile of the profession and how forensic psychology can inform public policy. 

Biographical information TBA.

Biographical information to be added soon.

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Sally is currently employed by HMPPS and located in the Midlands region. 

She has been a Chartered and Forensic Psychologist since 2001 and have over 21 years of experience working in forensic settings. Work settings include prisons, developing programmes for juveniles and adults, and training forensic practitioners in the UK and USA.  

Sally's areas of specialist interest are rehabilitative custodial environments, fire-setting and forensic risk assessment. 

Biographical information TBA.

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Martin has been a Regional Lead Psychologist for HMPPS since 1999 and has worked in HMPS since 1988 across all population types as well as in HQ roles. He is the Research Lead Psychologist for HMPPS Psychology. 

Martin is currently on the BPS Ethics Committee and an Assessor for the Qualification in Forensic Psychology. In addition, for the Psychological Testing Committee he is Vice Chair for the Committee on Testing Standards, a Forensic Testing Verifier and also a member of the Diploma in Psychometric Testing Working Party.

Martin is Honorary Consultant and Forensic Psychologist within Southern Health Foundation Trust and a Honorary Lecturer in Forensic Psychology at Portsmouth University. Further he is Co-Chair of Prospect Trade Union representing Psychology and affiliated specialists employed by HMPPS.

Martin's areas of specialist interest are practitioner ethics and boundary management, psychometric testing, research design, violent and sexual offenders, transgender offenders, consulting in forensic practice; applying forensic practice in clinical settings.

Biographical information TBA.

Emily is a Forensic Psychologist in Training at HMP Grendon on one of the main Therapeutic Community (TC) wings.  Emily graduated from the University of Exeter in 2012 with a BSc (Hons) in Psychology and went on to complete a Masters in Forensic Psychology at the University of Portsmouth in 2013.

Emily has worked in the prison service for 6 years and is currently working to implement a Trauma Management group on the TC at HMP Grendon and has a specific interest in the ‘strengths based approach’.

Nic is a forensic psychologist and has experience of working clinically with people who have committed serious offences.  Her specialism and research interests focus on criminal violence and in the prevention of, treatment of and management of violence.   Nic’s research was accepted within the Research Excellence Framework (REF), 2014 and the most recent REF of 2021. This means that at least 50% of her work was assessed as and judged to be either ‘Internationally Excellent’ or ‘World Leading’ and none of her work was rated as less than ‘Internationally Recognised’.  

Nic has experience of directing clinical trials, in challenging environments (e.g. [prison settings) and undertaking some health economic outcomes (e.g. Bowes et al. 2014).  She works extensively with external partners to ensure her research is applied and has the potential to impact on both policy and practice.  She has undertaken more than 14 Knowledge Transfer projects which have provided several research (e.g. Bowes et al. 2012; McCarthy et al. 2011) and enterprise funding. Nic has successfully applied for various European funding applications, including a Horizon 2020 funded project which aimed to support young people and reduce the incidence of domestic violence in teenage relationships (www.lights4violence.eu). 

Nic has over 20 years experience of clinical experience, working with adults and young people who have committed serious violent offences.  Many of the people Nic works with have experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and been exposed to traumatic events and these experiences are often functionally linked with their use of violence and aggression. As a result, people may present with a range of mental health difficulties, mental disorder, misuse substances, commit crimes and find it difficult to engage with services designed to support them.  Nic has extensive experience of working to overcome barriers to engagement and undertaken research in difficult environments in order to guide practitioners to work with those who most need the support of forensic psychology services. 

Biographical information TBA.

See CPD Lead section for biographical information.