Summary of evaluation of the
educational psychology service
A report by HM Inspectorate of Education
South Lanarkshire Council
1 February 2011
Definition of terms used in this report.
HM Inspectors use published criteria when making evaluations. They are published as
quality indicators which relate evaluations to six levels. HMIE began using a six-point
scale to make evaluations in August 2005. The table below shows how the six-point
scale relates to the four-point scale that we used previously.
Old level
Very good
Good
New level
Excellent
Very good
Good
Fair
Unsatisfactory
Satisfactory
Weak
Unsatisfactory
Description
Outstanding, sector leading
Major strengths
Important strengths with some areas for
improvement
Strengths just outweigh weaknesses
Important weaknesses
Major weaknesses
This report also uses the following words to describe numbers and proportions:
almost all
most
majority
less than half
few
over 90%
75-90%
50-74%
15-49%
up to 15%
Contents
Page
1.
The aims, nature and scope of the inspection
1
2.
What key outcomes has the service achieved?
1
3.
How well does the service meet the needs of its
stakeholders?
2
4.
How good is the service’s delivery of key processes?
3
5.
How good is the service’s management?
4
6.
How good is leadership?
5
Appendix 1 - Quality indicators
1. The aims, nature and scope of the inspection
Recommendation 20 of the Review of Provision of Educational Psychology Services in
Scotland (2002) charged HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE), on behalf of the
Scottish Ministers, to provide an external evaluation of the effectiveness of the
Educational Psychology Service (EPS) in improving the impact and outcomes for
children, young people and families. From June 2010, in line with recommendations
from the Crerar Review (2007) the volume of inspection activity was reduced with the
inspection providing evaluations on 14, rather than 19, quality indicators.
The inspection of South Lanarkshire Council educational psychology provision was
undertaken on behalf of stakeholders. The evaluation of EPS was conducted within a
framework of quality indicators which embody the Government’s policy on Best Value.
The inspection team also included an Associate Assessor who was a depute principal
educational psychologist (DPEP) serving in another Scottish local authority.
This web-based report should be read alongside other strategic inspections of
South Lanarkshire Council which sets out the wider context in which EPS are delivered.
The Educational Psychology Service
The South Lanarkshire Council EPS was based in three area teams with offices in
Hamilton, East Kilbride and Clydesdale. At the time of the inspection, the complement
of educational psychologists (EP) was 26 full time equivalents (FTE) and one research
assistant. Promoted staff consisted of a principal educational psychologist (PEP), 1.5
FTE depute principal psychologists and 9 FTE senior practitioners. Administrative
support was provided by a team consisting of one administrative assistant and 5.6
clerical assistants.
2. What key outcomes has the service achieved?
The EPS had been very successful in aligning its work with the vision, values and aims
of the Council’s Education Resources and Integrated Children’s Services. It had made
a significant contribution to the Education Resources’ Action Plan and to the Children’s
Services Plan (Getting It Right For South Lanarkshire’s Children and Their Families). It
set challenging targets within its own improvement plan and these were achieved within
agreed timescales. Psychologists had played lead roles in developing policy and
practice within the education authority (EA), particularly in relation to the wellbeing
themes achieving, nurtured, included and safe. The service had established very high
quality partnerships and was using these to improve experiences and outcomes for
children and young people. For example, it was leading on aspects of the Integrated
Assessment, ensuring that the quality and consistency of integrated assessment across
the authority was in line with the principles of Getting It Right For Every Child
(GIRFEC) 1 . The service was working very well with others in the authority to reduce the
1
The GIRFEC approach aims to ensure that centres, schools and educational services
work more closely with partner agencies so that all children get the help that they
need when they need it.
1
number of out of authority school placements and to improve the achievements and
attainments of looked after and accommodated children. Psychologists had established
a very strong child centred approach to all aspects of their work and this was very
successful in driving equality, fairness and inclusive practice.
The EPS complied very effectively with appropriate guidance and legislation. Statutory
requirements relating to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act
(2004) were met very well within individual practice and were reflected in service
documentation. Psychologists were working very well with partners, including the
Authority Reporter to fulfil their wider statutory duties. The service was highly aware of
its responsibilities in relation to the protection of vulnerable groups. It gave a high
profile to child protection and was represented on the Child Protection Committee by a
depute principal who was also the service’s designated child protection coordinator.
Appropriate policies and procedures ensured that all staff received regular updates and
appropriate training.
3. How well does the service meet the needs of its stakeholders?
The impact of the service on children and young people, parents and carers was very
good. A range of very high quality interventions developed by psychologists were
helping individuals and groups of children and young people, by giving a greater
emphasis to their strengths and reducing risks to their emotional health and wellbeing.
Children coping with loss, including family break up and bereavement, were being
significantly helped by a well-targeted programme developed jointly by psychologists,
NHS Lanarkshire and Macmillan Cancer Support. Children who had worked with
psychologists expressed very high levels of satisfaction about their contact with the
service. They felt respected and valued and thought that the help they received had a
positive impact on their lives. They particularly appreciated being helped to become
successful learners, improve their confidence and family relationships and to increase
their skills in dealing with challenging situations. Children and young people,
particularly those with additional learning needs, were very well supported by the
service at times of transition. The service should ensure that young people know how
to make contact with psychologists without having to go through their parents or school.
Parents who had worked with psychologists reported that they had very positive
relationships with them and expressed very high levels of satisfaction about the positive
impact the service had on the lives of their families. Parents and carers (including foster
carers) of children with additional learning needs were very well-supported by the
service. Psychologists gave very valuable help to parents and carers to support their
children more effectively. The service should seek to preserve the very productive
relationships psychologists form with parents by minimising the number of changes of
psychologists.
Schools and support services expressed very high levels of satisfaction with the EPS.
The high quality of psychologists’ work and the very creative ways in which it was
delivered were highly valued. The work carried out by the service relating to critical
incidents and the impact of trauma had been particularly successful in supporting
schools and in promoting children’s emotional health and wellbeing. The Post School
Psychological Service (PSPS) had carried out very effective work to support the
authority in ensuring that young people requiring More Choices More Chances were
receiving an appropriate standard of service. The service demonstrated particular
2
expertise in developing materials to help build the skills of others, including school staff
to support children’s social, emotional and educational development. The service
communicated very effectively with the local community through a range of attractive
newsletters about various aspects of its work.
South Lanarkshire’s EPS was creative and innovative in its approach to delivering
educational psychology. Psychologists were committed to providing a high quality
service and they were supported in this by a very helpful administrative and clerical
team. They were proud of their service, and keen to ensure that they play their part in
helping to achieve Education Resources’ priorities and aspirations for children. A
number of the service’s initiatives had attracted national interest and a number of staff
were involved in national developments and working groups.
4. How good is the service’s delivery of key processes?
The service provided very effective levels of consultation and advice to children and
young people, families, schools, and support services within the authority’s staged
intervention framework. The high quality of EPS consultation was influential in
promoting organisational development within establishments and strategic direction
within the authority. The service contributed very well to consultations being carried out
by Education Resources, other Council departments, other stakeholders and the
Scottish Government. Comments provided by the service were constructive and of high
quality. The service had helpful practice guidance on assessment, based on local and
national guidelines and psychologists were making a significant contribution to the
development of the authority’s policies and practice on assessment. At a casework
level, assessment was, in most cases, designed to impact at the least intrusive level of
intervention. The service had recently made good progress in improving the quality of
literacy and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) assessments to ensure consistency of
practice and build capacity in key colleagues throughout the authority. School staff
valued the shift in emphasis towards collaborative, contextual assessment which was
contributing directly to effective interventions. Overall, the delivery of assessment in
individual teams and at practitioner level was focused and well-planned. There was a
need however, to improve the consistency of approach across the service. The service
was very effective in supporting, developing and delivering a wide range of high quality,
well-planned and evidence-based interventions at the level of the child and family,
establishment and authority. Well-considered literacy interventions were beginning to
make a very positive impact on children’s attainment and on the confidence and skills of
key staff. Give us a Break, FAIR and Think Well Do Well were very successful in
improving the emotional wellbeing of vulnerable individuals and groups of children.
Psychologists had been proactive and responsive in developing a range of appropriate
and highly effective professional training and development activities. The service was
leading on joint training to improve the effectiveness of multi-agency interventions within
the authority. These materials and events had led to better support for young people
from staff across the council, from foster carers and via 16 plus Learning Choices. The
service made a very strong contribution to research and strategic development within
the authority. Research carried out by the service had led to very effective and
innovative interventions, some of these had been adopted by other services and EAs.
Members of the service had access to high quality consultation and advice about
3
research proposals. They were very well supported in the planning, delivery and
evaluation of research by a well-established service infrastructure including the
Research and Evaluation Team. The service kept schools and partners informed about
research developments via a very informative Research and Evaluation newsletter. The
PSPS Team had carried out helpful research projects which had made a positive
contribution to supporting the More Choices More Chances agenda within the authority.
The service should continue to plan carefully to ensure maximum impact of its research
work.
Features of good practice:
•
FAIR: Framework of Assessment and Intervention for resilience.
•
Give Us a Break: a programme for children aged 10-14 years who are coping with
negative change including family break up and bereavement.
•
EPS leadership of the development of Education Resources’ operating procedures
and support to schools and children in response to critical incidents.
•
The contribution of the PSPS team to the national agenda.
Further details are available from the PEP.
5. How good is the service’s management?
The service had established very high quality partnerships at the strategic and
operational level with other Council services, health and the voluntary sector. A very
well established planning and reporting cycle was in place. This was very well
managed by the PEP and fully aligned with appropriate planning cycles within the
Council. Professional development plans for members of staff linked very well with the
service’s improvement plan. This ensured that staff understood their roles and
responsibilities for delivering on the strategic planning partnership’s ambitions for
South Lanarkshire’s children. Service delivery was guided by an appropriate set of
policy documents. Policies reflected the service’s very strong value base and
commitment to children’s rights, and linked clearly to local and national priorities and
appropriate legislation. A strong and effective approach to self-evaluation had been
embedded in the work of the service. Psychologists were encouraged to reflect on their
own practice and the service had looked closely at aspects of its work to inform
improvements. There were examples of very effective involvement of stakeholders to
identify service improvements. The service should now build on its very strong
relationships with stakeholders to put in place a more systematic approach to their
involvement in improvement planning.
4
6. How good is leadership?
Senior officers within the authority provided a very clear vision for education and
children’s services and the EPS was helping it to achieve this by delivering educational
psychology of a very high standard. Communication between the authority and the
service was clear and very effective. The service’s strategic planning was closely
aligned with the Council’s Single Outcome Agreement, Education Resources’ priorities,
and Integrated Children’s Services Planning. Aspects of strategic plans on which the
service was leading were incorporated into the service’s own improvement plan. The
PEP provided very strong leadership and direction and demonstrated a clear
commitment to continuous improvement which had ensured better outcomes for
children and families. She was supported by the Deputes in communicating a very
clear view of what the service was aiming to achieve and what it needed to do to
succeed. She worked very well with the Head of Inclusion to ensure that the service
adhered to the principles of Best Value and had been creative in securing funding from
external sources for agreed priorities. The PEP successfully deployed staff resources
to meet appropriate strategic objectives and was highly aware of the need to plan for
sustainability. Her very strong leadership was helping to steer the EPS successfully
through current economic challenges. Leadership of improvement and change within
the service was outstanding. Robust self-evaluation was used to identify any changes
needed to service delivery to improve outcomes. The PEP had put in place very
effective structures to involve staff fully in service improvement planning and help
secure continuous improvement in the standards of psychology offered. Professional
creativity was encouraged, success celebrated and staff were well supported to develop
innovative approaches to service delivery. Progress against demanding targets set for
service development groups was carefully monitored. The authority provided robust
support and challenge to the service to help it ensure that developments were targeted
on improving outcomes. The PEP made a strong contribution to the wider quality
agenda within the authority and the service was highly valued by the Education
Resources’ Management Team and other partners. Best practice identified through
benchmarking with other services and through the service’s involvement at the national
level was used very effectively to drive improvements.
Key strengths
The service had:
•
benefited from the outstanding leadership of the PEP and staff involvement in the
continuous improvement of their service;
•
provided a very effective service to the local community;
•
achieved very clear alignment with the corporate vision values and aims;
•
established innovative evidence based approaches to make a positive difference to
the life chances of children and young people;
•
established strong positive relationships with stakeholders; and
5
•
embedded a very child centred approach to educational psychology driving equality,
fairness and inclusive practice.
Main points for action
The service should:
•
continue to improve arrangements for the systematic involvement of stakeholders in
service development; and
•
continue to build on its approaches to assessment to ensure consistent practice
across the service.
As a result of the EPSs high performance and its very good understanding of its
strengths and areas for improvement we have ended the inspection process at this
stage.
Clare Lamont
HM Inspector
Directorate 5
1 February 2011
6
Appendix 1
Quality Indicator
Evaluation
Improvements in performance
Impact on children and young people
Impact on parents, carers and families
Impact on the local community
Consultation and advice
Assessment
Intervention
Provision of professional development and
training for other groups including parents,
teachers and health professionals
Research and strategic development
Policy development and review
Participation of stakeholders
Operational planning
Leadership and direction
Leadership of change and improvement
7
Very good
Very good
Very good
Very good
Very good
Good
Very good
Very good
Excellent
Very good
Good
Very good
Very good
Excellent
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Crown Copyright 2011
HM Inspectorate of Education