Accessing an Educational Psychologist

Our involvement is usually requested by schools and educational settings or by the Local Authority Special Educational Needs Service. Schools/settings can purchase time to access our service.

If you feel that our involvement would be useful, you can discuss this with a member of school or setting staff. The school/setting may be able to provide some extra help or they may consider which service would be most appropriate to provide support (e.g. Behaviour Support Team, Learning Support Team, Autism Team, Sensory Impairment and Physical Disability Team). The school/setting Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo) will usually make contact with us.

A member of school/setting staff may approach you to say that they think the involvement of an Educational Psychologist would be helpful. We will be pleased to discuss what this involvement could be. We aim to become involved in cases at an early stage, so a request for our involvement does not always mean that concerns have become very serious.

For work with individual children, the school will complete an online Request for Involvement form. You will be asked to give your consent for this to happen. Once this has been accepted by the educational psychologist you will be notified by email and receive an information leaflet about our service. We will create a confidential file and can start gathering information about your child’s needs.

Young people aged 16 and over are able to request our involvement through the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator at the educational setting that they are attending. The young person will be asked to give consent for the request for involvement to take place.

When a request for an Education, Health and Care Assessment (EHC) is made, the Special Educational Needs Service will ask us to provide a report. As part of this process, we will meet with parents/carers, the child/young person and people who know them well to collect information.