Educational Psychology and Specialist Outreach (EPSO) Team

Colleagues from the Educational Psychology (EP) Service and Specialist Outreach (SO) Team comprise the EPSO Team. Whilst two distinct teams with differing and multifaceted roles and functions, the integration of both teams represents a collaborative partnership which supports special educational needs and disabilities provision within Bright Futures Educational Trust academies.

EPSO Team Vision:

To find the difference that makes a difference for children and young people with SEND to thrive.

EPSO Team Mission:

• We collaborate with our academies to provide a responsive, dynamic and flexible service, tailoring our work to meet the individual needs of each of our children families and staff.;
• We provide an efficient and accountable service through cycles of service delivery and evaluation;
• We seek opportunities to identify themes across academies to undertake strategic work and build capacity at the whole trust level;
• We adopt solution focused approaches;
• We are driven by an uncompromising belief in equity, and ensuring that our children and young people’s SEND needs are met;
• We champion our Bright Future’s Educational Trust Values of leadership, integrity, passion, community, equality, and resilience.

Educational Psychologists

The EP Service are a team of qualified Educational Psychologists and Trainee Educational Psychologists (TEPs). EPs are scientist-practitioners who utilise psychological skills, knowledge and understanding for the benefit of children and young people (CYP) within educational  settings.  In-line with the Children and Families Act (2014), and the SEND Code of Practice (2015), EPs work with CYP in the newborn to 25 age range.

There are five key functions within an EP’s role:

• Consultation (i.e., structured conversations that involve information-gathering/ problem-solving);
• Assessment (i.e., assessing CYP’s strengths and difficulties using both formal and informal assessment techniques);
• Intervention (i.e., undertaking direct work with CYP to support their difficulties; this also includes therapeutic work);
• Research (e.g., formal research leading to publication in peer-reviewed journals; informal research to test hypotheses within educational settings);
• Training (i.e., training staff on how to support CYP’s difficulties).

EPs carry out their five functions (i.e., consultation; assessment; intervention; research; training) across three levels:

• Individual (i.e., individual CYP);
• Group (i.e., groups of CYP);
• Strategic (i.e., systems within the educational.

EP Vision:

To affect positive change in the lives of children and young people, their families, and the staff who work with them.

This will be achieved through the provision of equitable, high quality and evidence based psychological services guided by their best interests.

EP Mission:

• We utilise all functions of the EP role to provide a bespoke and holistic service working strategically and proactively across our trust;
• We build positive relationships and act as a critical friend, and are transparent in everything we do;
• We make wider contributions to the field of educational psychology and stay at the forefront of research, training, and professional practice.

Specialist Outreach Team

The Specialist Outreach Team are a team of Specialist Leaders of Education from Melland High School with expertise in supporting the needs of pupils with SEND.

The team works collaboratively alongside the Educational Psychologists and across all schools within our trust to share expertise and practical guidance to staff, assist with provision planning, curriculum development and statutory compliance and in the delivery of focused CPD and training on a broad range of SEND needs.

In addition to consultancy and pupil-focused interventions, the team also contribute to whole-school development by supporting SEND-related aspects of school reviews.

Working closely with SENDCos and Inclusion Leads, the team’s priorities are informed by feedback, data, and evidence of impact, reinforcing Bright Futures’ commitment to equality and educational excellence for every learner.

The Offer

The EPSO team offer provides a wide services range of across three broad service tiers: a trust-wide universal offer, individual academy offer, and individual children, families and staff offer.

EP time allocation model of service delivery

To provide equitable service delivery, the EP Service use a time allocation model. The time allocation available for each academy is shared during individual academy EPSO termly planning meetings (see below for further details). Time is allocated to academies based up on the following criteria:

• Size of school (pupil numbers);
• Percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals;
• Percentage of pupils that receive SEND support;
• Percentage of pupils in receipt of an EHCP;
• Need for EP casework to inform EHCP needs assessment applications;
• Likelihood of pupils transitioning to a specialist/ alternative provision;
• Additional provisions e.g., EYFS provision, resourced provisions, units, small specialist classes, alternative provisions, sixth forms;
• Ofsted category/ feedback and need for urgent/ complex strategic work;
• Pioneers of trust-wide strategic work;
• Travel time.

EPSO Termly planning meetings

Termly planning meetings for each academy are typically attended by academy principals, SENDCos, EPSO team members, and system leaders amongst others. Three planning meetings are held near to the start of each term. During planning meetings service activities are discussed, prioritised and agreed based upon each academy’s individual needs and available time allocation.  Note: It would be unlikely that any academy would access all areas of the EPSO Team offer at any one time.

Cross-trust pre-recorded SEND CPD

A wide range of pre-recorded SEND CPD is available. Topics include:

Bright Futures SEND Network

Bright Futures SEND Network is facilitated by the EPSO Team. Bright Futures SENDCo’s and Assistant SENDCo’s are invited to attend SEND Network meetings which are held twice each year. SEND Network agenda’s are wide ranging and provide an opportunity to disseminate and discuss SEND best practice at national and local levels.

Bright Futures Autism Strategy

The Bright Futures autism strategy is influenced by the Manchester Autism Strategy and Morewood, Humphrey and Symes (2011), who wrote about ‘mainstreaming autism’ with the use of a saturation model. A saturation model reflects the central tenet that, to be effective, inclusive principles and practice need to permeate every aspect of school life. Thus, in order to be ‘autism friendly’, each of our academies needs to be saturated in autism understanding and awareness.

Critical Incident Response Procedure

Critical incidents are events that are sudden and unexpected; are serious, significant and

outside the range of normal human experience; are markedly distressing; and, have the potential to challenge or even overwhelm the coping mechanisms of the whole school or members of the school community (Aucott & Soni, 2016). The critical incident response (CIR) procedure outlines the guiding principles and key features of a critical incident response from the perspective of Bright Futures’ academies and the EPSO Team.

Link EP and SO colleagues

All Bright Futures’ academies have designated Link EP and SO colleagues. Link EP and SO colleagues serve as the first points of contact for the EPSO team in their respective academies and liaise closely with SENDCo’s to facilitate work agreed during termly planning meetings. Furthermore, Link EP and SO colleagues can be contacted with additional queries throughout the year.

EP solution circles

Solution circles are designed to draw upon community capacity to help people become ‘unstuck’ from a problem situation they are currently facing. In short, participants of a solution circle have one of four roles: the problem presenter (who shares their current problem situation); a problem facilitator (Educational Psychologist: who manages the process and is a time keeper); a note taker (who records the salient features of the conversation and any solutions developed); the brainstorm team (who work collaboratively to generate possible solutions and share knowledge and professional experience that may help improve the situation). Four problem solving steps are followed, with each step being stringently timed to last no more than six minutes: problem sharing; brainstorming; discussion and clarification; and confirmation of next steps.

Individual casework to support EHCP applications

EP Individual casework to support EHCP applications is agreed during termly planning meetings with each academy in collaboration with academy SENDCos and Principals. Prior to commencing EP individual casework, it is essential that informed written consent is obtained from the appropriate person or people. The person or people who are able to provide consent for psychological services is dependent on a range of factors which includes amongst others: the child’s age, who has parental responsibility, whether or not the child is Gillick Competent/ has mental capacity. Furthermore, in order for consent to be considered informed, a copy of the EP Service Privacy notice must be shared with the person or people consenting.

EP parent/ carer drop-ins

EP parent/ carer drop-ins are an opportunity for parents/ carers to meet with an EP to discuss

an area of need or concern in relation to their child, and receive problem solving support. The EP parent/ carer drop-in session typically lasts for between 45-minutes to 1-hour.  EP parent/ carer drop-ins are agreed in advance during academy termly planning meetings. Direct assessment work with children is not undertaken as part of the EP parent/ carer drop-in offer, however, the drop-in process can contribute towards assess, plan, do, review cycles.

Staff drop-ins

Staff drop-ins are an opportunity for staff members to meet with a member of the EPSO team to discuss an area of need or concern in relation to a pupil, and receive problem solving support. Staff EP drop-in sessions typically last 1-hour. Staff drop-ins are agreed in advance during academy termly planning meetings. Direct assessment work with children is not undertaken as part of the EPSO staff drop-in offer, however, the drop-in process can contribute towards assess, plan, do, review cycles.

EP staff supervision

EPs are able to have an indirect impact on children and young people by supporting school

staff, which includes the provision of staff supervision. The EP Service subscribe to the following definition of supervision:

‘Supervision is what happens when people who work in the helping professions make a formal arrangement to think with one another…about their work with a view to providing the best possible service to clients, enhancing their own personal and professional development, and gaining support in relation to the emotional demands of work.’

Three main supervisory functions include:

• Managerial (administrative/ normative/ quality control) function: Organisational procedures are followed (administrative); consistency of standards (normative); managers can be sure of service delivery (quality control).
• Educative (formative) function: Learning and development foster competence, confidence, compassion and creativity.
• Supportive (restorative) function: Managing emotional resources.

The type of supervision offered to staff by the Educational Psychology Service will exclusively utilise the educative and supportive functions of supervision, and will not have a managerial function.

EP contingency time for specific & unexpected advice

The EP Service are aware that there are some occasions where academies feel the sudden

need for EP involvement when all of their termly time has been used or allocated. The EP service therefore protects a limited amount of contingency time each term to meet unanticipated need across our trust.

In order for contingency time to be accessed, the following criteria must be met:

• The ‘problem situation’ relates, either directly or indirectly, to pupils with SEND;
• The problem situation was unknown at the time of the most recent EPSO planning meeting;
• The school feel unable to resolve the problem situation without support from the EP Service.

Collaboration with external agencies and services.

The EPSO team work alongside and in collaboration with a wide range of external agencies and services including, but not exclusive to: system leaders, Local Authority SEND Services, Local Authority Educational Psychology Services, and the University of Manchester Doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology Programme.