What to expect

Being informed about the consultation and assessment process gives you an opportunity to support your child or young person as they work with our Educational Psychologists. It can also help you know what to expect as a parent and when you’ll be involved.

What an Educational Psychologist is

Educational Psychologists (EPs) work with children, families, and schools. They use their knowledge of psychology and research to support learning and other areas, such as how children feel, behave, and get on with others.

Why an EP might be involved

There are many different reasons why EPs might be involved with your child’s situation. Examples include:

• helping children to understand themselves better, e.g. what helps them to learn, or manage their worries, and then sharing this with you and school staff
• supporting teaching staff to think about helpful changes they can make in school

When EPs work with children

A member of school staff, often the SENCo, will contact the EP where they think that this could help a child or young person. They will always ask you first, to check that you are happy for the EP (or a supervised trainee EP) to become involved. If you agree, you will be asked to sign a consent form before any work takes place.

What EPs do

As each child or young person is different, the EP (or trainee EP) will plan to work in whatever way they believe is most likely to be helpful. This might include listening to you, your child, and key members of school staff about:

• what is causing concern and what you have already tried
• goals and hopes for the future
• strengths, interests, and what currently helps

This might be through a face-to-face meeting in school, a home visit, or a video call. It might also include a classroom observation, or working directly with your child using activities that help the EP to understand more about how they learn. This will usually result in a plan of actions, put in place by the school, and might include a summary report (where agreed). The EP might be asked to have further involvement, for example, being part of review meetings to see how the plan is going.