Educational Psychologists work mainly with young people up to 19 years old
We also work with their parents/carers and their teachers and other adults in school. We might also talk to other people that the young person has met such as doctors or speech and language therapists.
When we say we work with young people we mean lots of different things
We might spend time talking to them, seeing them in their classroom or in the school yard or we might ask them to do some activities that help us learn more about what they do well and what they find more difficult. Young people usually say theses activities are fun.
This means that most of the work is done in the young persons school but also sometimes at their home.
We are usually asked to work with a young person because they, or their parents/carers, have asked us to help them with a problem. These problems might be:
-
Finding some or all school work hard;
-
Finding it difficult to make or keep friends;
-
Getting into trouble with teachers;
-
Getting upset because people are being unkind;
-
Feeling upset or angry when at school, for any reason.
After we have collected information about the young person and about their problem (e.g. when it does and does not happen) this should help us to help teachers and parents/carers to sort out this problem
The young person often has ideas about what might help them sort out the problem and we can help them to put their plan into action and tell other people about it. We may also be able to suggest some things that we have found helpful in similar situations with other young people.
The information we have collected and the ideas we have talked about are often shared with the people who can help
We usually write a report to let your parent/carer and teachers know what work has been done. The report will talk about things that may help solve the problem. We might go through these things at a meeting that has been set up to look at ways of helping the young person.
The young person might be invited to some or all of the meeting. Sometimes the young person might not want to tell us things that are on their mind but do not want us to share this with anyone else. We agree to keep the information private as long as what they tell us does not affect their safety.