Information for Practitioners

The Educational Psychology Service provides a service for individual children using a consultation based approach. This means we are speaking to and advising the key adults around the child. There is significant evidence that a consultation approach, involving problem solving, identifying interventions and review, can have a very positive impact. Unfortunately we cannot offer this universally. We provide a tiered approach to our service delivery  which means we consider individual children who have been assessed already as at stage 2 of the Falkirk Council Staged Intervention Approach:

Stage 1 and 2 – online resources on this blog can be used to inform your asessment and intervention prior to involving educational psychology.

Stage 3 and above – the psychologists prioritise the involvement using the table below and identify an Episode Type

Prioritisation

We aim to be responsive as a service and so we do this through a prioritisation system.

A. Statutory requests from parents, young people or the Local Authority. These need to be responded to within specified timescales, usually 10 weeks for an assessment, and potentially 16 weeks, and will be accepted on the basis of the information provided.

B. Prioritised based on the information provide through Educational Psychology Request for Assistance – About – MyFalkirk:

    1. critical incidents – please contact the Principal Psychologist, or a psychologist working already with your school, as this often requires rapid resource re-deployment.
    2. children at risk of education placement breakdown
    3. children where there is evidence that high levels of adaptation are required
    4. assessment in relation to significant Additional Support Needs or placement
    5. children educated in Non-Falkirk Council schools with significant Additional Support needs
    6. exploratory Assessment to identify areas of concern

Please see About and How We Work

We are in the process of updating our Critical Incidents Guideline which will be issued shortly. In the meantime if you have a critical incident please inform the Heads and Director of Education. If looking for specific advice and support from the Educational Psychology Service please contact Nick Balchin directly or an EP working with your establishment.

Request for Training or Development Work

Please look at the Education Hub and CPD Manager for our current training offer. When practitioners identify areas for training that are not currently provided it is often the case that there is more practitioners identifying this same need. There is information on the training we have provided here. it may be that asking for one of these courses is what would help your team or organisation. We will develop new training if we have enough time to explore the needs and skill requirements of the audience. The Service proposes to have a new Smart request system by early 2026. In the meantime email the service EducationalPsychologyService@falkirk.gov.uk with “Request for Training” in the Subject line, outlining your request and your needs analysis.

Request for Assistance

Please use Educational Psychology Request for Assistance – About – MyFalkirk. This does have a consent process for parents, but it is good practice to have spoke to them in advance. We cannot proceed without their consent.

Consent Form

In exceptional circumstances there may be a reason why a parent cannot provide consent through this system. In this case please download a consent form and send it to us once completed by uploading in the Educational Psychology Request for Assistance – About – MyFalkirk.

Form – Consent for Involvement with the Educational Psychology Service April 2025

 

Strategic Consultation

Psychologists offer Consultation and advice at school, cluster or authority level on a range of topics, such as school policy and practice on promoting inclusion, authority approaches on relationships and behaviour or a cluster review of barriers to school attendance affecting families.

These are collaborative problem solving fora where the needs of children and the trends or themes can be discussed at a more strategic level in order to consider how we might respond in ways that have a greater impact. It has assisted us in developing our priorities for training and development work since 2018/19.

We will be consulting with stakeholders on how we can achieve the aims of this type of service delivery as we move forward.

The aims include:

  1. having an overview of the range and profile of barriers to learning and Additional Support needs at a level beyond a single school to allow the EPS to prioritise its limited resources
  2. providing a forum for collaborative solutions to meeting children’s needs at a community level to assist in developing shared practice and expertise in a community

We continue to offer provide a service to the Falkirk Community Planning Partnership’s strategic groups.