Educational Psychology Service

Aims of the Service

The Educational Psychology Service aims to enhance the learning, development and emotional wellbeing of children and young people in Perth and Kinross. The primary focus is on overcoming barriers to learning, with interventions to promote learning, development, resilience and wellbeing.

About us

The Educational Psychology Service aims to enhance the learning, development and wellbeing of children and young people in Perth and Kinross.

A team of Education Psychologists are led by the Principal Educational Psychologist, who holds a dual role as an Inclusion Manager and who retains a small allocation of school-based practitioner work. All Educational Psychologists must be registered with the Health and Care Professions Council, who regulate the work of the profession on behalf of the government. Educational Psychologists must undertake a specified amount of professional learning on an annual basis. Professional practice is also guided by standards published in the British Psychological Society's Code of Conduct and Ethics.

What do we do?

Every Perth and Kinross school has an Educational Psychologist. Educational Psychologists operate a consultation service which provides an opportunity to seek least intrusive and early stage solutions through discussion with key adults in children's lives, as well as to agree and plan further work as appropriate. Partner provider nurseries are also able to contact the service for consultation. Young people, parents and carers can contact the service directly. Educational Psychologists also offer a consultation service to partner agencies offering support to young people post-school, such as Perth College, Skills Development Scotland and Services for Young People.

When working at the casework level (PDF, 45 KB) with children, young people and families, the primary focus is on overcoming barriers to learning, with interventions to promote learning, development, resilience and wellbeing. Consultation is the starting point for casework. Decisions about the extent and nature of Educational Psychologist involvement, beyond statutory requests, are based on the professional judgement of the Educational Psychologist following discussion and consideration of impact, vulnerability, young person's views, readiness to change and professional boundaries.

Parental and/or young person's consent is required for Educational Psychologist involvement and information storage where:

• ongoing consultation about a child or young person is agreed
• direct involvement with the child, young person or family is agreed

The information provided by you will be used by Perth and Kinross Council to allow you or your child to access Educational Psychology services. The information may be shared with third parties including the Scottish Children's Reporter's Administration or the NHS when it is necessary or appropriate for us to do so. For further information on how the Council uses your information, please look at our data protection web page, email DataProtection@pkc.gov.uk or phone 01738 477933.

As well as working to link schools, Educational Psychologists also apply their psychological skills and knowledge by working to support staff training and development, project-based interventions, and undertaking pieces of research on behalf of the authority. In this way, a large number of children and young people benefit from Educational Psychology Service support.

What are we working on just now?

We undertake a range of research and development in partnership with schools, the education authority, and other organisations, and in response to national priorities. We have training and experience in qualitative and quantitative research methods. For more detailed information, please see our latest Standard and Qualities Poster (PDF, 226 KB). What we are working on provides more information on what the service in working on.

The Educational Psychology Service worked in collaboration with schools to improve school engagement through action research projects in 2014 to 2015 and 2015 to 2016, with evidenced impact on areas of school engagement. A full report (PDF, 288 KB) and briefing paper (PDF, 117 KB) is available with further details about the school action research projects and tools to measure engagement.

How are we doing?

Evaluation of our service

Perth and Kinross Educational Psychology Service undertook a validated self-evaluation in collaboration with local and neighbouring education authority staff and HM Inspectors, Education Scotland in June 2016.

The Perth and Kinross Educational Psychology Service draws upon on the concept of 'learning organisations' whereby we actively seek knowledge about our effectiveness and operate systems which transfer the learning into better practice (Senge 1990). We aim to gather, process, and act upon information in ways best suited to their purposes, get feedback on services, continuously refine ourselves and are "open systems" sensitive to the external context (Brandt, 1997).

We operate a model of continuous improvement of service delivery. This is achieved through robust self-evaluation, consultation with stakeholders, practitioner reflection and professional development. The Service therefore aims to have a self-evaluation framework that gathers proportionate but robust data, in order to learn more about the extent that it meets its aims and those of Education and Learning, and the impact it has on outcomes for children, young people and families.

Giving us feedback

We welcome feedback. If you have a comment or complaint, you are encouraged to discuss this with your psychologist. If you prefer, you can contact EdPsychologists@pkc.gov.uk.