The Educational Psychology Service is a statutory service which is provided at no cost by the Council for the benefit of the people in Moray. The overall purpose is to promote the development of the personality, talents and mental and physical abilities of children and young people to their fullest potential through collaborative work with individuals, families, schools, educational managers, and other agences.
The statutory functions are set out in Section 4 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, with subsequent amendments as follows:-
‘It shall be the duty of every Education Authority to provide for their area a Psychological Service, and the functions of that Service shall include:-
This is a wide remit and includes the broad range of children and young people in the 0 – 19 year age range who have additional support needs of any kind. In addition, the Service has a central role in ensuring that the Education Authority meets its statutory obligations in terms of the Education (Scotland) Act 1981 and, once implemented, the Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004.
Educational psychologists work at three main levels: the level of the individual child or family, the level of the school or establishment, and the level of the local authority and partner children’s services. In relation to each of these levels of work psychologists have five core functions: consultation, assessment, intervention, training and research.
The current work of the Service is summarised below (this list is not exhaustive):-
Referrals can be accepted from any professional agency which has a direct interest in a child or young person’s development, from parents, and on occasions from older children and young people. Referrals from professionals are only accepted after parents have been consulted and their consent obtained. The views of children and young people should also be sought. Parents should be sent a copy of any written referral to ensure that all parties are clear as to the reasons for seeking Educational Psychology involvement.
For school referrals the normal practice is to discuss and agree referrals with the school’s educational psychologist before a written referral is submitted. It is also normal practice for schools to make full use of their internal resources (including Support for Learning staff) before seeking direct input from specialist support agencies such as Educational Psychology. Copies of the referral form are available on the internet, together with a parental information leaflet.
The demand for the Service is always greater than the resources available. It is necessary, therefore, for potential referrals to be prioritised, in order to ensure that the time available is deployed in the most effective and equitable way. Schools have a key role to play in this process in consultation with their contact psychologist.
Highest priority is given to statutory duties, cases where there is a high risk of the educational placement breaking down, early identification of additional support needs and support for parents, children moving into the area, existing formal commitments (e.g. through Service Level Agreements) and other referrals on the basis of the need, irrespective of the source of the referral.
An advice and consultancy service is available to all professional referring agencies and parents. Often this can lead to problems being resolved without the need for a formal referral and direct intervention from the psychologist.
Each ASG (Associated School Group, ie a secondary school and feeder primaries) has a named contact or ‘patch’ psychologist who is the initial point of contact for each school and undertakes the bulk of their work within the ASG. The patch allocation is shown in the staff list below.
The allocation of psychology time to each ASG is based upon population figures, taking account of the personnel involved and
the different characteristics of each ASG, including number of schools and travelling distances. In addition, a degree of
flexibility exists to ensure that the Service is able to respond to urgent requests across the Moray area as a whole.
In addition to ‘patch’ duties, the psychologists are encouraged to develop specialist areas of expertise, e.g. Hearing Impairment,
Visual Impairment, Autism, Dyslexia, Solution Orientated Schools. The aim of these remits is to complement rather than replace
the work of the patch psychologist and any enquiries about accessing specialist expertise should, in the first instance, be
addressed to the patch psychologist.
Code of Conduct and Customer Care
All Educational Psychologists work within the code of conduct for Chartered Psychologists as determined by the British Psychological Society. They are therefore obliged to:-
Full details of the Code of Conduct are available on the British Psychological Society website. As employees of The Moray Council, they also work within the customer care framework, which includes a formal complaints procedure.
Information for Parents & Carers Leaflet - Educational Psychology Service
The British Psychological Society
Beechbrae Education Centre
Duffus Road, Elgin, IV30 4NP
Tel: 01343 550999
Email educ_psychology@moray.gov.uk