Young people

An Educational Psychologist (EP) is someone who visits schools and colleges to work with teachers, parents, carers and young people. A number of young people will see an EP at some time during their time in school.

Our job is to try to help people find ways to make school better by thinking about what works well for you and your strengths, as well as exploring things that are a bit trickier for you. Most importantly, we’re here to support you.

If you’ve got any questions about how we can help that aren’t answered here, let your Educational Psychologist, teachers, parents or carers know.

Cartoon illustration of a young person

What will happen

We know that sometimes it’s hard to talk about what you are thinking or feeling, so we’ll help you feel as comfortable as possible when talking to us.

An adult in your setting will introduce you to us (the EP), and we will check that you’re happy to work with us before we start. You don’t have to meet with us if you don’t want to, but we would like to hear what you have to say. You can also ask someone to be with you in the meeting if you like.

We will let you know how long the meeting will take. You can ask for a break or for us to stop working together at any point in our meeting.

You’ll be listened to, and you can tell us if you don’t feel comfortable or have any questions.

Your assessment

As part of the assessment, we might:

  • spend time in your class to see what happens and what sort of work you’re given
  • talk with you about things you enjoy, find difficult, and want to change
  • ask about what is important to you, what might help you, and what your hopes for the future are
  • get to know you by doing things like drawing, games and puzzles, and looking at books
  • meet with adults who know you well from home and school

Person-Centred Planning (PCP) meetings

As part of our work with you, we might suggest holding a PCP meeting. This video gives you information about what to expect if this happens, which you might find helpful to watch first. Sometimes we will plan to have a full PCP meeting, as described here, and sometimes we will use parts of this process in a smaller meeting. Either way, you will be at the heart of it.

What happens afterwards

At the end of our meeting, we’ll recap what we’ve talked about, and keep a record of this. We’ll discuss with you who else this will be shared with.

There’s usually a meeting with the EP, parents/carers and school staff to come up with a plan to help make things better for you.

Further information

There’s a lot of information available on the internet that can be extremely helpful when you’re looking for support. It’s important that these resources come from reliable sources.

Here are some websites to help you start your research:

Young People – CAMHS (hampshirecamhs.nhs.uk)

YoungMinds | Mental Health Charity For Children And Young People | YoungMinds

Childline | Childline

Grief support for young people | Winston's Wish (winstonswish.org)

Neuroscience and Psychology - Articles - Frontiers for Young Minds