Educational Psychology Service

The Educational Psychology team is part of the Inclusion Service. Our key purpose is to help promote all aspects of a child or young person’s development (aged 0-25), using Psychology to help children and young people reach their full potential. We work with children and young people directly, parents and carers, teachers and support staff and with other agencies. We provide consultation, assessment and training and cover a wide range of areas including difficulties with schoolwork (reading, writing, maths) memory and attention skills, social and emotional well-being, and more.

• We are child advocates: the wellbeing of the child is paramount.
• Psychological research and evidence underpins our practice; we are committed to continuous professional development in order to improve outcomes for children and young people.
• The importance of collaborative work with families, educational settings, partner agencies and the voluntary sector.
• A commitment to inclusion, equal opportunities and non-discriminatory practice.
• A belief that change is possible.

We value the strong links and joined up working with many other teams in Portsmouth that help to  remove  barriers to achievement for all our children and young people, in particular those with special educational needs or from vulnerable groups.

We work with nurseries, schools and colleges. We are also involved in programmes in Portsmouth to support children and young people with special or additional needs, including attachment difficulties and neurodiversity assessment and support, for example. We provide a wide range of training in the city including Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSA programme).

Educational psychologists contribute to Education, Health and Care assessments. We will always meet with parents and carers to listen and understand their child or young person’s needs and aspirations.

Continuous professional development is so important. Our Educational psychologists contribute to the EP training programme at Southampton University and we welcome trainee psychologists on placement with us every year as this keeps us up to date with current research and practice.

We are a partially traded service and school can opt to purchase our services.

Supporting young people at secondary school with literacy difficulties

The Educational Psychology service worked in co-production last year with several secondary schools to understand the barriers to ensuring high literacy levels for all. Focus groups with young people were also held and parents consulted as well as consulting to understand some of the key principles involved in how best to support children with literacy difficulties in our secondary schools.

What follows is guidance from the EP team around how best to support young people with literacy difficulties as part of quality first teaching so that every teacher feels able to be a teacher of literacy.

Accessing the EP team

If you are concerned about your child please talk to your health visitor, nursery setting or SENCO. If they If they think it would be helpful to involve an EP  they know how to do so and this will always be done with your consent. If you have any questions or concerns please contact our mailbox SharedMailbox.EducationalPsychologyService@portsmouthcc.gov.uk