DERBYSHIRE PSYCHOLOGY
SERVICE
Service booklet
Reviewed 25.08.10
Version of 25.08.10
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Derbyshire Psychology Service
Mission Statement
To apply our knowledge of psychology at all levels, to ensure that
any barriers to learning and development, whether cognitive, social
or emotional, are reduced and children and young people’s future
prospects are enhanced.
Psychological well-being and resilience in childhood are known to be crucial
to life chances. As educational psychologists our role is to use our
knowledge of psychology to promote the social and
emotional well-being of everyone with whom we work. We
emphasise the importance of confidence in being able to
learn and sense of achievement as necessary for social
and emotional well-being and the interdependence of all
these factors in supporting success in school.
Success in learning and
development
Social and emotional
well-being
Aims
Our overall aim is to help children achieve more throughout Derbyshire by
the application of psychology. This will be achieved through:
 Improving the educational attainments of pupils through the application of
psychology in partnership with settings for children and young people.
 Improving the psychological health and well-being of children and young
people through the application of psychology in schools and community
settings.
 Improving the early development of children through the application of
psychology.
 Prioritising the needs of identified groups of
vulnerable children and young people such as
children in care and children in the exclusion zone.
 Providing high quality psychological advice to the
local education authority for statutory assessment.
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 Improving the functioning of the Psychology Service to help children
achieve more.
 Ensuring high levels of inclusion for all.
Structure
The Psychology Service is part of the Children, Families
and Social Inclusion Section of the Children and Younger
Adults Department of Derbyshire County Council.
The Service is led by Principal Psychologist, John Galbraith and Deputy
Principal Deborah Page. The management structure comprises Senior
Educational Psychologists who line manages Educational Psychologists
working in local offices. Additionally, one Senior Educational Psychologist is
responsible for special work undertaken in relation to Early Years Children
with Special Educational Needs.
Typically each psychologist has to serve a large area and we have
approximately 1 psychologist per 7000 children/young people (age range 019). The demand for us to work with large numbers of individual children far
outstrips our capacity to undertake high quality work.
In order to plan effectively and to respond to the diverse range of needs in
communities we have focused on developing a new role within Children’s
Services which enables us to undertake a broader delivery of services to
work together with other agencies within the Children’s Workforce.
We have an ongoing process of reviewing our service delivery which takes
into account the views of a variety of the stakeholders who work most
closely with children and young people. In particular there are consultations
with schools, representatives from the Local Authority and of course parents
and carers as part of a rolling process. This is to ensure that our services
meet expectations of Government, Local Authority priorities and the
expectations of parents and carers. This process also ensures that the
Service is matched to the development of Children’s Services across
Derbyshire.
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Key Features of the Derbyshire Psychology Service
From September 2007 we made changes in order to meet the challenges of
working with vulnerable children and young people in a range of community
settings. The Service re-organised its work into three main areas as shown
below.
Community
Psychology Service work
Community
Commisioned
Service
Maintenance
The major thrust of the work
for children, schools and
families will come under the
heading of ‘Community’ work.
This will comprise provision
of a service to those children
and families deemed to have
severe
and
complex
difficulties or to be vulnerable
in the community. This will
be delivered to any setting
that works with children and
families, though of course, a
major emphasis will be on
delivery to schools.
Commissioned
This aspect of Psychology Service work is relatively new and is aimed at
helping the Local Authority (LA) achieve the outcomes of the Children and
Young People Service Plan (CYPP) by means of defined and targeted work.
Some of this work will be commissioned and financed by other LA service
providers such as Social Care. Other aspects of this work will be internally
commissioned with specified outcomes designed to assist the psychologists
achieve their own targets derived from the CYPP. Some of this will be
innovative activity, some will be training. There will be both research activity
and work aimed at increasing the capacity of service stakeholders such as
schools. All of this will have a contractual-style allocation of time,
description of targets and expected outcomes and will be allocated to those
EPs who are best suited to accomplish the commission.
Service Maintenance
This aspect of the work of the service is aimed at ensuring that it is fit for
purpose. Educational Psychologists, if they are to be effective, must have
knowledge that is current, a capacity to deal with a considerable volume of
work and the personal stability that enables them to deal with situations,
often charged with emotion, without being deflected from professional
decisions and courses of action. It also ensures that we meet the
requirements of our Regulatory Body the Health Professions Council and
the standards of practice determined by them and the British Psychological
Society.
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Community: Services to School and Other Settings
Support for Settings
Direct work with
young people
We will support settings in developing strategies that are both
preventative and ensure early intervention. Where necessary the
focus for EP involvement will be broader than contact with
individual pupils. This is achieved through, for example:

Targeted work


Support for settings

Targeted work
The Psychology Service provides a consultation service to
support the inclusion of all pupils. This could be on an
informal or formal basis.
Informal consultations are intended to be brief and to
involve the adults working most closely with the children or
young person. They can be meetings about individuals or
groups of children causing concern. These discussions will
not result in data about individual children being recorded.
In some schools the multi-agency meetings already taking
place would be an appropriate forum for discussion at this
level.
Access:
Access is by an agreement at Support and Planning
Meetings to involve the EP in existing arrangements or to
set up regular informal consultation meetings.
Formal Consultations
This is intended to be a more in-depth and focussed
discussion about the needs of particular named children. It
is anticipated that the format of these consultations will be
on a Plan – Do – Review cycle. It is essential that
discussions involve those people working most closely with
the child and include the parents/carers. The aim is to
clarify concerns and identify solutions/strategies that are
both practical and achievable. Discussions will be
recorded and the child identified. This level of consultation
requires written parental consent to be in place and that the
setting has explained to parents or carers their concerns.
Consultation with and support for, staff to provide universal
access to psychological theory and practice
policy discussions
project work e.g. systems to improve transitions and transfer of
pupils; and
training on a range of topics related to inclusion, SEN,
emotional well-being and support for parents
Access:
Support and Planning Meetings
There will generally be a Support and Planning meeting in settings
usually twice each year. During these meetings, which could be
with a single representative from the setting or multi-agency, use of
a structured agenda will facilitate discussion about support needs
and how these can be met.
Annual Inclusion and Improvement Planning Meetings (AIIP)
Part of the LA’s development and co-ordination of services has been
the introduction of AIIP meetings. These are being gradually
introduced to schools across Derbyshire and when held may take
the place of a Support and Planning meeting.
Direct Work
As many as 20% of children will experience emotional or
learning problems or difficulties at some stage of their lives. For
the most part they will be helped by teachers and other staff
applying good teaching and pastoral interventions. A small
number of children will experience extremely complex
problems. As a service we are working on finding methods for
identifying those children with more complex needs to ensure
we are targeting our work on the most vulnerable children. We
recognise that what are often described to us as children’s
problems and difficulties actually take place against a wider
backdrop of influences such as family support, school
effectiveness, healthcare, economic factors or peer influences.
Even where there are clearly within-child factors, looking at the
systems surrounding the child will help to identify what factors
might be maintaining the problems and how the child can be
supported more effectively.
When assessing children, therefore, we have to look for information about those elements that can be changed to
improve the situation. The goal of all assessment we undertake will be to identify a helpful intervention for those who
have sought our help and to support them in doing it.
To intervene:
We need to:

speak to the key people in the child’s life;

identify everyone’s goals;

complete a relevant and appropriate assessment of the child and environment

work with the key people to develop solutions; and

review the outcomes
Access;
The EPS seeks to work with children who have low incidence high complexity problems. This is to ensure the service
is equitable across the county. The focus is on those children whose difficulties are severe and complex and whose
needs cannot be met through approaches outlined above. This work in all cases requires that parental consent is in
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place ofand
that the parent fully understands the concerns and the nature of our intervention
Additional Services
Critical Incidents
The Psychology Service is able to respond to a critical
incident by providing support to settings. This could include
specific advice to staff, parents and children, information and
resources.
Multi-Element Plans
The Psychology Service is leading the introduction of Multi-Element Plans
for pupils with complex SEN, in particular those in the exclusion zone.
These serve three purposes:
 ensuring that the child’s perspective in terms of the
function of behaviour, is taken into account;
 co-ordinating the input of a number of services; and
 developing an overall, cohesive educational plan
Our service to parents, carers and children
In line with national developments the Derbyshire Psychology Service works
with parents, carers and children to ensure that they are informed and fully
involved with work of the EP. Information leaflets for children, parents and
carers are included in the Appendix and available on Derbyshire web pages.
Quality Assurance Process
Ensuring that our service is of the highest possible standard is important to
us and as such we have a number of systems in place to monitor and
evaluate our work.
1.
Staff
All EPs recruited to the service have qualifications and experience
that conform to Health Professions Council requirements for
registration as practising educational psychologists.
In addition they will have been CB checked by the LA.
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2.
Performance Indicators
We also record our performance each year against a number of
indicators to monitor both the amount of different types of work we are
doing for example the time in schools and the number of Children in
care we are involved with in order to ensure that we are targets set by
the LA.
3.
Evaluation of our work by Consumers
We evaluate our work by regularly seeking the views of children,
parents and carers and of schools. We do this on as part of a rolling
process.
This is critical to us as it helps us develop what we do in response to
those with whom we work.
4.
Ongoing Monitoring of Performance
We welcome and actively seek feedback on our service delivery, both
positive and with respect to areas of concerns. We hope that in the
first instance discussion will be held with the link EP, however, we
encourage contact with line managers where necessary. There is a
formal complaints procedure in line with Derbyshire County Council
procedures, but we would always wish to resolve problems at an early
stage where possible.
5.
End of evaluation
The managers of the service in conjunction with EPs evaluate the
data that is provided in the activity recording system that we operate
for each EP. This data helps to determine the patterns of work for the
subsequent year. The line manager for each EP will also reviews this
data during Staff Support and Development sessions to ensure that
work is monitored, targets are being achieved and that there is equity
in the types and quantity of work that is being done. This helps to
ensure equity not only between local schools and settings but more
widely across areas.
6.
Response Times
Telephone or written enquiries to the Service will be given an initial
response within 5 working days and a more detailed response, where
necessary, in 20 working days.
Whenever possible the Service aims to give immediate feedback oral
or written where an EP has been into school. Written
feedback summarising the educational psychologist’s
assessment and recommendations will be made
within 15 working days.
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Requests for statutory advice to the Service should be responded to
within 6 weeks under normal circumstances as required by the DCFS.
Specific Questions and Answers
When will an Educational Psychologist attend a
review meeting?
It will not be possible for Educational Psychologists to
attend all reviews at Early Years Action Plus or for pupils with
Statements. It would therefore be helpful for the Service and
the Educational Psychologist to prioritise at least a term in
advance of those reviews the EP needs to attend, including
consideration of the following factors:
 Phase transfer, including transition reviews in preparation for leaving
school, in mainstream or special schools where it appears that this may
be problematic or of concern to parents.
 A major change in the type or quantity of special provision is considered
necessary to meet a child’s needs.
 Where mediation is required to resolve differences in perspective
between key individuals involved with the child.
What is the role of Derbyshire EPs regarding pupils living in a
neighbouring Authority but attending a Derbyshire school?
Ongoing advice and support is available from the Derbyshire EP for all
children with Special Educational Needs attending Derbyshire schools,
including those resident in neighbouring Local Authorities. Sometimes the
Statutory work will be undertaken by EPs from the neighbouring Local
Authorities where the children live.
What if a child with a statement moves from another Authority to live in
Derbyshire?
The SEN section should be informed. They will decide whether a
reassessment is necessary and may ask a school to hold a review during
the pupil’s first term to aid this decision. The EP may be asked to contribute
to this review.
Who will see an EP’s report or a child’s case file?
All reports written by Derbyshire EPs are routinely copied to parents and
schools. Reports may be made available to other relevant professionals
with parental agreement.
A number of professionals as well as parents may request access to all
papers in a pupil’s file, including those provided to a school.
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What if an EP visit is cancelled by the school?
Wherever possible the EP will endeavour to reschedule a visit
as soon as other commitments permit.
What is the EPS role with regard to special examination arrangements?
In order to ensure that EPs work is targeted on pupils who have the greatest
need, areas of work which could be completed by
others need to be reduced. Under the current
arrangements all schools would have a teacher to
undertake this.
What is the EPS role with regard to gifted and
talented children?
Gifted and talented children are not normally seen by a
Derbyshire EP unless they also have special educational
needs and are referred by the school in the same way as for all children.
As part of the commissioned work a strategic contribution to the
development of services in this area is made by the Psychology Service.
What should I do if I have concerns about the work of my EP?
The first step to take is to raise your concerns with the EP. If you are unable
to resolve the matter contact a member of the EPS senior management
group.
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Appendix One
EPS Commissioned Work
Given below are examples of the commissioned work that is due to be
undertaken by the EPS.
This is to give an indication of the range of activity in terms of:
 Training
 Innovation
 Research
 Work for, or with, a number of services within
the department of Children and Younger Adults
 The focus on the broader areas of vulnerability
eg young offenders and school age mothers
Shown below are a range of the activities undertaken as commissioned work
Participation in the LA Anti Bullying developments
Training programme for Autism -EYFS/1/2
Training programme for Autism-KS3/4
Multi-agency group planning, training in ASD
Courses on sex and relationships education (ASD)
Early support ASD - Running piloted courses
Autism outreach steering group
EY behaviour group & development of Behaviour Friendly file
Delivery of portage training
Understanding behav and dev positive strats
Support for Children Centres
Pilot Baby room project
Anxiety - research project
Classroom resilience
Loss and Bereavement
Dev use of Narrative Practice in schools/settings
Develop positive psychology
Development of EWB project for EY settings
"Not Playing at it" course - Pam Swanwick
Therapeutic Story Training
Attachment Training
Attachment Training Sue Owen
Documentation for CAYA about children with anxiety
Group Theraplay in schools
Delivery of training on Domestic Abuse
ADHD guidelines update
Dev FA/MEP materials and training
Production of behaviour friendly file
EP support for KS3 Nurture group
KS4 / Reducing NEET
Training on Goals of Misbehaviour, ADHD and ASD
SEAL
Extend and evaluate Paired Reading
Replication of West Dun Lit project
Continued dissemination of Transitional protocol
Positive parents
VIG training and supervision
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On the Derbyshire web pages there are copies of the following documents
http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/education/special_educational_needs/support
_services/psych_soc/default.asp
Copy of leaflet for parents
Copy of leaflet for children and young people
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