Educational Psychologists (EPs) are concerned with children's learning and development, and with this focus they work mainly in schools, with teachers and parents. They carry out a wide range of tasks with the aim of enhancing children's learning. They offer psychological support and advice to enable teachers to help children more effectively and are aware of the range of social and curriculum factors which affect teaching and learning
Bristol EPs are involved with youngsters from ages 0 - 19. A significant proportion of our work is focused on under 5s.
The Bristol Educational Psychology Service plays an important role in advising schools, parents and the LA on how to help children make the most of their educational opportunities and experience.
Bristol EPS is considered to be a forward looking and dynamic service. We are active in looking for ways to apply psychology to help address the needs of schools, children and parents. We are continuing to develop innovative ways of working with our client groups that will have the greatest impact on achievement for all children.
Since September 1998, the service has adopted a Consultation framework approach for delivery of its service to schools. This has proved highly successful and has been well received by schools, and by parents, as it provides increased opportunities for the psychologist to make a difference to children and schools.
It is widely agreed that the Change for Children agenda will have a significant impact on how services are delivered to schools and communities. In the light of Change for Children, the Bristol Educational Psychology Service has considered how best to deliver services, to allow for greater flexibility and accountability to our schools and communities.
To facilitate effective working practices each school has a link psychologist and visits, which are organised in proportion to need, based on the population, social depravation factors, statutory duties, and schools experiencing difficulties (based on the EDP category).
During visits, the psychologist is able to offer advice on how best to overcome difficulties and also work to help prevent difficulties arising in the first place.
In Bristol the EPS continues to play a significant role in identifying and assessing children and young people with special educational needs. The service has a crucial role to play in evaluating the strategies that have been implemented by schools, and in supporting the inclusion of children with increasingly complex needs within mainstream schools.
Importantly, the Bristol Psychology Service is also widely involved in approaches that are intended to have an impact at a more systemic or wider level than individual casework. We are exploring developments in the areas of organisational and occupational psychology that can be applied to ‘schools as organisations'. Every psychologist is encouraged to contribute to these developments. The service also plays an important role in supporting schools in difficulties
The service is strongly committed to delivering a high quality, effective and efficient service to schools. We have introduced quality and standards systems for monitoring and improving our work: we regularly gather feedback on the quality of our consultations, the quality of our advice for statutory assessments, and other key indicators.
The service is also committed to the professional development of its staff through a programme of individual training and development reviews and has introduced significant whole service developments, via a substantial investment in whole service training.
The service has established close links with the University of Bristol Educational Psychology training course. This course is itself innovative and forward looking in its approach to the role of the educational psychologist. The service offers opportunities to supervise EPs in training, contribute to the training course and to study to a doctoral level with the University.
Multi-agency and multi-professional work is important to us. Most EPs work from office bases shared with special needs support teachers and education welfare officers, and are developing a range of approaches to delivering ‘joined up' support for schools. Similarly we are taking a lead role in a number of initiatives to improve the way we work with health and social services professionals.