Kingston and Richmond EPS (Achieving for Children) - Educational Psychologist

We are a service that is highly valued within our organisation; our diverse and wide-ranging skills as psychologists are recognised, well understood and very much in demand. We are also a service that successfully income generates and given the increased desire from our schools and partners for next year, we are looking for enthusiastic and creative psychologists to join our supportive and innovative team.
This is a particularly exciting time to join AfC EPS. The national SEND reform agenda presents significant opportunities for EPs to shape inclusive systems, strengthen early intervention, and influence how support is delivered locally. AfC EPS have been fundamental in shaping and developing the local Expert at Hand (EAH) model. Over the coming year, we are looking forward to piloting our EAH offer and playing a key role in evaluating its impact. Alongside this, EPs will have opportunities to contribute to the implementation and evaluation of wider SEND reform developments, helping to shape future service delivery and ensuring that psychology remains at the heart of system change across the local area.
We are a large and supportive psychological team with a range of professional interests and experiences. Each EP works with a dedicated patch of schools, and our strong level of buyback enables them to maintain a consistent presence and deliver a broad range of activities within their settings. The team is currently leading an Attachment Aware and Trauma Informed project with colleagues from the Virtual School across schools in Kingston and Richmond, alongside developing work with schools on executive functioning, contributing to local work and understanding around Extended Non-attendance from School (ENAS), and shaping TA support. Our service also offers the standard provision of ELSA, workforce development training, and Early Years’ consultations, which next year we are looking to develop further through an exciting programme of work within Family Hubs. This emerging area of practice will provide EPs with opportunities to shape service delivery, strengthen support for families in the early years, and work collaboratively with a range of professionals to improve outcomes through psychologically informed approaches.

Our service operates a transparent and proportional time allocation model, set at the beginning of an academic year, which has flexibility in-built to take into account the realities of unexpected events. Core functions such as supervision, line management, CPD, and team meetings are top-sliced to protect the wellbeing and professional standards of the team. The remaining time is then divided into three purposeful strands: direct school work, rota activity, and service development/income generation/community psychology projects. While we fully acknowledge the importance of the statutory responsibilities of the EP role, we are committed to ensuring this represents only one element of rich and varied practice. To support this balance, rota work (i.e. directed EHC needs assessment) currently accounts for just 19% of time after top-slice, enabling EPs to contribute meaningfully to both statutory and wider preventative, holistic, and community-focused work.

As an Educational Psychologist for AfC you will be joining:

• An EP team which is highly regarded by schools and other services/organisations across Kingston and Richmond.
• A service at the forefront of local SEND developments, with EPs playing a key role in shaping inclusive practice, early intervention and strategic reform initiatives.
• A collaborative EP team, where working together is encouraged and opportunities to work in pairs or small groups are routinely built into our practice.
• An EPS that highly values supervision, offering both group and individual supervision to support reflective, safe and effective practice.
• A service which successfully commissions and trades with a wide range of stakeholders, allowing for creative and interesting systemic and early intervention opportunities.
• A service which keeps psychological theory and research at the forefront of all our practice and work, and is committed to providing a high-quality evidence-based psychological service to children and young people in our communities.
• A service which highly values professional development and service development. As such, we ensure there is protected time for all EPs to work collectively and systemically. Our safeguarded time enables us to focus on training, service development, project work and early intervention.
• A service that is a well-established part of Kingston and Richmond schools’ assess, plan, do and review cycles ensuring that statutory activity is kept at a manageable level and focused on ‘making the difference’.

We have flexibility in where successful applicants are based, with opportunities to work predominantly from either Kingston or Richmond. If you are interested in finding out more or applying, please do look at our advert via the link to apply,  and/or get in contact with a member of our team. Informal enquiries are more than welcomed and can be done via 020 8547 6698 or educational.psychology@achievingforchildren.org.uk 

Applicants must be professionally qualified and registered with the HCPC or be or be enrolled on the professional Educational Psychology Doctoral programme.

NB. Applicants to note that this post is not paid on Soulbury terms and conditions, and an enhanced DBS check is required.