Salford Educational Psychology Service works with parents, early years settings, schools and other professionals to promote children’s development and emotional well-being. We work with children and young people between the ages of 0 – 25 years.

Many children have needs within their development and learning at some point in their lives. Most improve with the help of their families, their schools and their friends. The Educational Psychology Service can offer additional advice and support.

Educational Psychologists (often known as EPs) aim to help others meet children’s needs in an informed and inclusive manner. EPs are generally asked to become involved with children who may be experiencing some difficulties to help provide a clearer understanding of their strengths and needs, and look at ways in which we can best help the child to make progress.

EPs often adopt a ‘consultative’ approach to help children succeed. This takes the form of a meeting with people important to the child’s life. Here, EPs assist people to reach solutions by drawing on the experiences of those involved with the child, as well as their professional training. More information around our consultation approach can be found in our consultation guide.

While EPs will work in different ways depending on the needs of the child, this usually takes the form of the following:

• A meeting with yourself, and nursery/school staff to help clarify the nature of any concerns based on all the available information.
• An observation of your child in their nursery or school. Sometimes we may also find it helpful to go through some individual assessments to build a picture of your child’s development.
• We will use this information to work collaboratively with you and nursery/school staff to identify some strategies and agreed on actions, to form part of a support plan or JOP (Joint Objectives Plan). 
• We will usually summarise the outcomes of our involvement in the form of a report or consultation record. We may then review the support plan at a later date, as part of a plan-do-review-learn cycle, which will inform any next steps.

Further information about how we work can be found on our parents and carers page  and on our schools and practitioners page.