Support for parents and carers

When we are asked to be involved with an individual child or young person, we:

• help to identify their strengths and needs
• talk to their parents/carers to listen and understand their child or young person’s needs and aspirations
• find out what extra help they need in their education for them to be happy and successful
• support and advise the adults who know the child or young person well, such as their parents or carers, and school, nursery or college staff
• write reports that describe what help the child or young person needs

If you are concerned about your child please talk to your health visitor, nursery setting, school or college Special Educational Needs Co-Ordinator (SENCO). The SENCO’s contact details will be on their website, or you can telephone the setting and ask to speak to them. If they think it would be helpful to involve an Educational Psychologist, they make a request for support on your behalf. This will always be done with your consent.

If you have any questions or concerns and need to contact us directly, please email us EducationalPsychologyService@portsmouthcc.gov.uk.

Educational Psychologists (EPs) work with children and young people all of ages. They may work with your child to establish what their strengths are, what they like and what they find difficult. This might be with learning and schoolwork, remembering things and thinking, or understanding feelings, thoughts and behaviour.

The EP may want to talk to people who know your child well and talk to your child too. They may want to do activities or puzzles with your child in a quiet area or spend some in your child’s class. Your child won’t have to answer any questions or talk about things if they don’t want to.

The EP will only talk to adults who can help improve things or who have important information about your child.  The EP will suggest ways to change things for the better and may ask your child, or adults at home or at school to do some things differently.

They may wish to come back to visit your child or the school at another time to see if things have improved.

For children who are particularly anxious about meeting new people or when school routines change, it can be helpful to let the EP know in advance, so that they can send some information to you about what they will do with your child, so you can prepare them beforehand and help reassure them.

As a parent/ carer, you will always be invited to meet with the EP when they are going to work directly with your child. It can be helpful to prepare for this meeting by considering what your best hopes are for meeting with the EP and what information you think it would be most helpful to share as well as any questions you might want to have answered.

Access information about the role of the Educational Psychologist for parents in other languages.  This information is available in Arabic, Bengali, Panjabi, Polish, Romanian and Urdu.

If you would like support when meeting an Educational Psychologist, you are most welcome to bring someone with you to the meeting. This can be a friend, relative or even a representative from a parent support network such as SENDIASS.

If a translator might help support with effective communication and understanding during the visit, do let us know and we will arrange an interpreter to be at the meeting.

As an alternative to meeting in school, the Educational Psychologist can also arrange a phone call or virtual conference meeting to obtain your views.