Visit to Falkirk Council Educational Psychology Service

I was fortunate this week to be invited to visit the Educational Psychology Service for Falkirk Council - about half an hour out of Edinburgh by train. I met the principal psychologist of the service, Graeme, about four years ago when he visited Calgary. Some of my colleagues may remember we had him over to my house to meet a small group of CBE psychologists at one of our planning meetings. When I came to Edinburgh I reconnected with him and he invited me to visit his EP Service.

I went to visit last Wednesday. Graeme took me to lunch and afterwards I spent some time with one of the psychologists and went to a team meeting. It is a small group with 13 staff in all. The one thing I was most impressed with was there job description. Graeme told me that they hardly ever use intellectual assessment such as the WISC-IV. Included in the mandate of educational psychology services from the government is consultation, assessment, intervention, research, and staff professional development. Psychologists generally work at a whole school level, but do at times work with individual children Assessment is through observation, interviews, curriculum-referenced and other materials the child is exposed to at their school and sometimes dynamic assessment. Children with special education needs can and do receive extra support that they need without the necessity of a standardized assessment /diagnostic label, the psychologist's opinion along with the school's reports and paperwork are used instead. I met with the EP Service staff on a particularly celebratory day as they had just delivered the results of research on secondary students they had recently completed. Graeme will be presenting some of the research that has been generated by his service at an upcoming conference. To find out more about the EP Service and/or the educational services for Falkirk Council check the link at the side.

I was really impressed with the approach to educational psychology that they take at Falkirk Council and it gave me some pause to consider the how some more of these elements may be incorporated in my own work setting. I think it does make a big difference to have a government mandate behind you!