Educational Psychology

The psychologists at Nottingham City Educational Psychology Service (EPS) work with and on behalf of children and young people aged 0-25 years. We hold children and young people at the heart of our work, alongside their families and the settings where they are educated. We are a passionate team of EPs, who take pride in what we do and care deeply about the children and young people of Nottingham City. We use our psychological knowledge, training and skills to promote the best outcomes for all. Our hope is to support the children and young people of our city to have positive wellbeing, be ambitious, and enjoy their educational experience, wherever they may be educated. 

Our service aims to use psychology to bring people and ideas together to enable positive change. We do this in a variety of ways, however, our underpinning values remain the same:

• We value difference
• We work with integrity
• We demonstrate and build understanding
• We work collaboratively

Our educational psychologists have undergone extensive training and maintain high levels of service delivery, in line with our regulatory body, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). We value diversity within our team and throughout Nottingham City. We aim to support equality for all.

How we work

We operate a traded model of service delivery and work with settings and organisations who commission us, in a plan-do-review cycle of working. We currently work with nurseries, schools/academies, specialist settings and alternative provisions.  

• Consultations
• Assessments
• Interventions
• Training
• Supervision
• Supporting setting leadership teams with development of a focus area

We work alongside a range of local authority services as well as independent organisations. Our work is carried out in multiple ways and at different levels as we work with individuals, groups and whole settings/systems.

We undertake preventative work, for example, supporting settings to develop their universal/ targeted practices, through to more intensive involvement, such as casework around a child or young person. 

EPs are well placed to support settings to strengthen their graduated responses to pupil needs.  EP support that is timely can be used as an ‘early intervention’ which can provide a psychological perspective to understanding a child’s needs.  Increased understanding can prevent escalation of certain situations, therefore enabling the best inclusion of children and young people. 

Work commissioned by the Local Authority

Some of the services that we provide are funded by the local authority, which means settings do not need to commission these. 

These services include

• Critical incident support
• INclude Team Support
• Education, Health and Care (EHC) Assessment and Planning
• Assessments with children who are new to the city/UK

For further information on our service please see our EPS brochure.