Who are Educational Psychologists (EPs)?
EPs work with a range of local schools, colleges and educational settings, to support pupils and students aged up to 25-years-old.
Whilst we will have needed to complete specific training to do our job, we strongly believe that no one understands your life or your circumstances better, than you do.
So, we try to work with you and the adults who know you well, to understand what feels important to you. Our support can often involve thinking about how you would like things to be in the future, and any hopes or goals that you may have.
How to self refer or be seen by an EP
If you feel that you need extra support in school or college, please speak to an adult that you trust. This may include a teacher, your form tutor, Head of Year, SENCo or someone else. You could also speak to your parent/carer. These adults may be able to help you with next steps of support.
You can also look at our Local Offer webpages for more information and support.
Why might an EP want to meet with you?
EPs might be able to support with several different things. We will listen to things that feel important to you, and to try to support with these.
Together, we might think about things like:
- Ways to make learning feel more successful and manageable, in school or college
- Understanding why it may feel difficult to go to school, and the support you would like
- Understanding your emotions and how to support your mental health and wellbeing
- Support with getting along with friends and teachers
- Asking for further support or help in school/college
- Support with planning next steps for your future, even if this feels really tricky to think about. This could include thinking about your next steps in education, or being as independent as possible
- Anything else that feels important to you.
What will an Educational Psychologist do? What will it be like if you meet?
We may meet at your school, at your home or virtually – with your agreement. We might:
- Talk to you to hear what you think
- Do some activities with you
- Talk to adults who know you well like your parents/carers and teachers
- Spend some time in your classroom to see how the adults support you
- Help to make a plan to hopefully improve things.
After a while, we might come back to see if the plan is helping.
We are interested in you and what you think. Sometimes it can be difficult to share your thoughts and that’s okay. We will want you to feel as comfortable as possible. We might bring some activities to do together, or to make our meeting easier. We will keep notes of the activities we do and things we talk about. We will agree what to share with your parents/carers and teachers at the end of our meeting.
How we can help if you're feeling uncertain about meeting with the EP
Firstly, you do not have to meet or speak with an EP, if you don’t feel comfortable to do so.
We want any meeting to feel as safe and as comfortable for you as possible. So, we might share some key ground rules for our sessions. These may include:
- You don’t have to talk to us, if you aren’t ready to do so,
- You don’t have to discuss anything that you don’t want to,
- You don’t have to join the session, or stay in the session,
- You can have a trusted adult with you,
- You can have a break at any point,
- If you tell us something that we may be worried about, like your or someone else is being hurt or is unsafe, we do have to tell somebody in school or college, to make sure that you are safe.
If you have any further questions, please get in touch.