Please note this page is under construction!
No Psychologist is an expert on everything, although most Practitioner Psychologists (of which Educational Psychologists are one type – for those less familiar with the scope of Educational Psychology, and applied psychology in general, please see below) are expected to have skills in a wide range of areas – put simply, a Jack or all trades, but hopefully also a Master of some! I offer the traditional range of services to schools, colleges and settings, but also have experience and expertise in a number of specific areas. These include:
Emotional Literacy
- – Consultation
- – An Introduction to Emotional Literacy for Schools: Theory, Assessment and Support (1 day training)
- – ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant training – 6 days typically delivered as 12 sessions over an academic year)
- – Support and supervision for pastoral staff
Emotional literacy (simply put, the ability to recognise your own emotions, their triggers and physiological correlates, the emotions of others, and the ability to manage and appropriately express how you feel) is a vital skill, a component of wellbeing that impacts on our mental health, and a capacity with which some young people need additional support. It is also an ability which can be learned and taught, a fact which has long been recognised and which resulted in the SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) curriculum in the early 2000’s. Although always important, it is an area which has seen renewed interest due to growing concerns about the wellbeing of young people, particularly in context of the Covid pandemic.
Skilled pastoral staff (something which every school needs) can make a remarkable difference both to the day-to-day wellbeing of the young people they work with, and to their longer-term outcomes – there is little that improves a situation more than supporting a young person to recognise and appropriately express their own emotions, to manage their anxiety, and to understand the causes of feelings such as anger that can otherwise be both traumatic and destructive. Such practical approaches cannot stand in for – or replace – the need for nurture (if that is what is needed), but they can support the same, and in many cases form part of it: they also enable self-regulation and wellbeing at all levels.
There are various approaches (and numerous resources) available to support pastoral staff in delivering an emotional literacy curriculum, some of them free and among them the original SEAL materials (available online and still used by many schools – see resources). As an ELSA (Emotional Literacy Support Assistant) trainer who has been working with this particular approach for some years now, I would say every school should have a member of staff trained in this approach. ELSA is both thorough and flexible; the training covers far more than how to assess and support the development of emotional literacy skills, introducing trainees to a wide range of resources and approaches including motivational interviewing, use of social stories and narrative, supporting children through grief and loss, etc, etc. Relative to other approaches it also requires a very modest investment (typically around £600-700 to train a member of staff, plus some charge for attending necessary termly supervision groups), and is now widely used throughout the UK.
For schools looking for a general introduction to Emotional Literacy (or who wish to improve the practical skills of existing pastoral staff working with SEAL materials or similar), I have also created a targeted emotional literacy ‘toolkit’. Based around eight key questions/areas for enquiry, this provides a detailed overview of what we mean by emotional literacy, consideration of key issues and concerns, and a focus on tools, session planning, and what constitutes safe working practice.
Lastly, I provide ongoing support and supervision to ELSAs and other school staff delivering pastoral care to children and young people – please feel free get in touch, always happy to talk and advise whether I currently have capacity or not … there is little that improves outcomes (both in terms of wellbeing, and with regard to how that feeds into academic progress) more than the provision of good, targeted pastoral care.
‘Future Selves’ interventions
- – Training
- – Support for implementation
Substance misuse and addiction
- – Consultation
- – Training
- – Onward signposting
Outdoor education
- – Climbing
- – Walling/mountaineering/expeditioning
- – Navigation
Wellbeing and mental health
- – Consultation
- – Training
- – Support, assessment and onward signposting as appropriate
Attachment
- – Consultation
- – Training
Memory and Learning
- – Consultation
- – Training
- – Assessment
- – Support and intervention
Extended Non-attendance (‘school phobia’, or ‘school refusal’)
- – Consultation
- – Training
- – Assessment
- – Support and Intervention
Children and young people with hyperactivity or attentional difficulties, or a diagnosis of ADHD
- – Consultation
- – Training
- – Assessment
- – Support and Intervention
Educational and Child Psychology in overview
Educational Psychologists work in a variety of settings, including nurseries, schools, colleges, other educational settings and homes; they use a range of approaches including consultation (sitting down, gathering and offering information, usually with a focus on solutions and next steps), observation, direct assessment and questionnaires. Sometimes a consultation may just be that: a single session with school staff and/or parents and carers, leading to specific actions (‘joint problem solving’) that help improve, or change, a given situation – as an approach, this is particularly suitable as a form of early intervention. In complex situations more detailed casework is often appropriate, and this is usually most effective when it follows an iterative Assess-Plan-Do Review (APDR) process … ‘iterative’ meaning we do it again, repeating the cycle and adapting support as appropriate.
As a practicing Educational Psychologist, my work often involves supporting and assessing children and young people’s wellbeing, social skills and learning needs. Much of my practice focuses more specifically on emotional literacy and mental health, with attention to both the young person and the adults around them. As such, I am versed in a variety of techniques designed to enable engagement and help young people find a voice, to effect positive change, and to explore (and support) young people’s learning progress. These include various forms of dynamic assessment and a range of ‘soft’ skills that draw on techniques and past training in Compassion Focused Approaches, CBT, Choice Theory, Attachment Theory and numerous other approaches.