Educational Psychology Service – Resources Page

Welcome

Welcome to the Tower Hamlets Educational Psychology Service (THEPS) resource page. We hope you find this webpage a useful resource. It is our aim for the page to grow and evolve over time. For this to happen we will be exploring ways to gain your feedback with regards to the resources page.

As we launch our new Resources Page, we have tried to make it as user-friendly as possible. We at THEPS hope to have access to developing technology in the coming months, which will allow us to be more creative in how the resource page will look. Stay tuned to watch how it develops!

We would also like to make you aware of our new Twitter feed, which will be launching very soon. We hope this social platform will help us raise awareness of psychologically informed practice and innovation. As always, our aims are:

  • To improve outcomes for children and young peple
  • To widen participation and promote inclusion
  • To support the attainment and wellbeing of all pupils but especially those who are disadvantaged or underachieving
  • To support the mental health and emotional well-being of pupils and staff in school
  • To support partnership working with parents

We will provide details of our Twitter Page once it’s live.


THEPS Blog Spot

Every month a member/members of the Educational Psychologists from THEPS will post a blog to share an area of interest they have, an exciting resource and/or an innovative piece of work they are involved in.

The second THEPS blog spot has been written by Leanna Lopez, one of our Educational Psychologists,...Thank you Leanna!

The Tower Hamlets Educational Psychology Service (EPS) has been using Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) since 2015. VIG is a strengths and evidence based approach that uses video to capture what is going well to build communication, interaction and support relationships. It can be used in a range of ways with parents, carers, children and young people, schools, key adults in settings and with other professionals.

To date Educational Psychologist’s use of VIG in Tower Hamlets has shown positive change in areas such as improved interactions, language development, positive changes in managing behaviour, significant changes in relational warmth and increased reflection/competence for key adults in supporting children.

Some examples of how it has been used include:

  • Teachers and teaching assistants (TA) working with individual students with identified Special Educational Needs and/Disabilities.
  • Teachers and TAs working with groups of students to look at how they could better facilitate student’s behaviour or learning.
  • Teachers with whole classes to develop their practice further i.e. Newly Qualified Teachers or recently qualified teachers.
  • Key adults in how they can encourage pupil’s responses, play and/or Speech and Language skills.
  • Helping to improve parent/child relationships, improve the nature of quality time and managing feeding more positively and in Children’s Centres.
  • Groups of students working to improve their communication and social skills (both primary and secondary aged children).
  • Video feedback to help children and young people increase goal or target behaviours.
  • A VIG group with parents learning from each other’s positive interactions with their children.
  • VERP (Video Enhanced Reflective Practice) which is an approach used to support the development of staff both in schools and Children’s Centres.

A majority of the Educational Psychology Service have completed the VIG Initial Training Course and are eligible to offer VIG interventions as required.

Why VIG for me?

I have had the opportunity and pleasure to use VIG to work with parents, school staff and young people. Once I have got a chance to understand what someone wants to work on or improve. I then use an iPad to take short clips of at least two people speaking or doing an activity together.

Next I go away and edit the clips so I can share the ‘best bits’ in the next meeting we have to watch the clips together. This known as a shared review, we would usually do three films and then have three shared reviews.

Each time you can really see what someone is doing well when they are talking or spending time with the person important to them in the film! By the end of my VIG interventions I can usually can see and people share the positive changes they can also see and feel. I think being able to see what is working and what might help when you are having a not so good day is really powerful. Just seeing two people smiling or enjoying being together in a still picture, I think has been a great way to think about what is already working really well! I love doing VIG and have found it to be the type of approach that leads to lots of positive change. The feedback from parents and teachers once they finish doing VIG is great and I think is a great foundation for the things they have learned from the process. Not to mention what they want to keep doing to increase positive, connected or attuned moments they have created through the VIG films.

If you would like to know more about VIG you can watch this short video or read our leaflet.

Please also free to contact our EPS if you would like to speak to someone about using VIG in your family, school or service.

Leanna

Educational Psychologist, Accredited VIG Practitioner and Supervisor


THEPS Reading Corner

The EPS Reading Corner is a chance for EPs to share, think and reflect on psychologically relevant texts. These could be peer reviewed journal articles, book chapters, news or magazine articles, blogs or even poems. The aim of the Reading Corner is simply to bring EPs together to think about a range of topics which might impact on our practice; which in this current climate of stretched resources and deadlines happens all too infrequently. This is an opportunity for EPs to pause and come together over something we enjoy.


Advance Notice

Mental Health Awareness Week: 13th – 19th May

For annual Mental Health Awareness Week from 13-19 May, this year Tower Hamlets Council and NHS Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are raising awareness around the theme of body image – how we think and feel about our bodies.

Every year the campaign, led by national charity the Mental Health Foundation, aims to raise awareness, promote positive mental health and wellbeing, and address mental ill-health issues.

The Mental Health Foundation has found that 50 per cent of mental health problems are established by age 14 and 75 per cent by age 24 so they are looking at body image issues across a lifetime – including how it affects children and young people, adults and people in later life.

Body image issues are not just felt by young people and can affect any of us at any age. The foundation found through recent research that 30 per cent of all adults have felt so stressed by body image and appearance that they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope. That’s almost 1 in every 3 people.

The BBC have a number of resources and videos that are aimed at supporting young people to develop a positive and healthy body image. You can check them out here:

https://www.bbc.com/ownit/curations/be-body-kind


THEPS Research Interest Group

Our Educational Psychologists (EPs) are skilled researchers who regularly carry out research projects as part of their role. It is now a requirement that Educational Psychologists complete a doctoral-level research as part of their training. We are privileged to have six Trainee Educational Psychologists currently undertaking these projects with our schools, colleges and other local partners.

To support our EPs in their research endeavours, we run a half-termly ‘Research Interest Group’ which focuses on research and publications.

The aim of this group is to:

•Share research, publications and resources with one another

•Collaborate on research projects

•Discuss and share aspects of research we are currently working on

•Seeking the opinions and support of colleagues

•Peer review and reflection on articles written

•Providing support for publication

•Disseminate findings and ideas to our wider team and further field

We will use this Research Blog to share our ideas, research interests and publications with one another, with our EPS colleagues and further afield.

[If you are a LB Tower Hamlets colleague working in education, and interested in joining our Research Interest Group meetings, please get in touch! We cannot promise you a place as spaces are limited, but we will do our best].

Lauren Coates can be reached via Lauren.Coates@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Our most recent meeting

In our most recent meeting we were excited to hear about Penelope Edwards’ (Trainee EP) research project in which she hopes to collaborate with a local college. Her passion for involving young people in research and discussions about their lives is so very clear to us. We discussed just how challenging it can be to involve young people in a truly participatory way in research, and we were able to help Penelope think through some aspects of her research design. We look forward to hearing about how her project unfolds… 

In our previous meeting, Penelope Edwards’ (Trainee EP) talked about her doctoral research project. As part of her research Penelope would like to gain the views of young people. During our recent meeting, she highlighted how the current climate has led researchers to consider different methods for engaging with research participants. We talked about how research evidence has indicated some young people are more comfortable in interacting with researchers via social media platforms in comparison to a direct face-to-face context.

Doctoral Research

As part of my doctoral research, I have constructed an online survey for parents of adolescents with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). The online survey is being advertised on twitter through Raising Awareness of Developmental Language Disorder (RADLD),  an organisation that promotes awareness about DLD.  If you are a parent of an adolescent with DLD and would like to take part in this research, please click on the link. https://twitter.com/RADLDcam/status/1243080664619970560

Many thanks,

Maria Gkini

(Trainee Educational Psychologist)


Educational Psychology Reach Out

Educational Psychology Reach Out, an exciting new online space where Educational Psychologists (EPs) from across the country will be sharing information and ideas. This space has been set up in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as an innovative way to connect with others as widely as possible.

Educational Psychology Reach Out is a space which will hopefully offer something of interest to EPs, school staff, parents and carers, children and young people and other professionals.

The aim is to provide live stream webinars at 8am each day, for 30 minutes. The session will also be recorded and available to watch again on our YouTube channel.

View the recorded webinars or watch pre-recorded videos at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhV-d1BFLFCLvCsgY8WlVA/featured

For further information regarding the project and an up-to-date schedule of upcoming webinars, please visit the href="http://www.southendlearningnetwork.co.uk/educationalpsychology">South End Learning Network.


Useful Links

Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families: Resources for Schools (https://www.annafreud.org/what-we-do/schools-in-mind/resources-for-schools/)

Cruse Bereavement Care: ‘Coronavirus- dealing with bereavement and grief’

(https://www.cruse.org.uk/get-help/coronavirus-dealing-bereavement-and-grief)

Department for Education: Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance for schools and other educational settings

(https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-schools-and-other-educational-settings)

Millpond Sleep Clinic: Tips for supporting sleep

(https://millpondsleepclinic.com/sleep-advice/)

Public Health England: Guidance for parents and carers on supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

(https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-supporting-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing/guidance-for-parents-and-carers-on-supporting-children-and-young-peoples-mental-health-and-wellbeing-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak)

Stars Team: A range of visual resources designed to aid autistic children and young people's understanding of the Coronavirus

(http://www.starsteam.org.uk/coronavirus-resources)

The Good Grief Trust: Coronavirus Bereavement Advice

(https://www.thegoodgrieftrust.org/need-know-info/coronavirus-bereavement-advice/)

THEPS Research Blog: A special interest group of THEPS, focussing on research and publications

(https://epsresearchtowerhamlets.wordpress.com/)

Tower Hamlets Local Offer: An online resource for Parents, Carers, Children and Young People about services and events available for the whole family within the Local Area (http://www.localoffertowerhamlets.co.uk/)

Winston’s Wish: Supporting children through coronavirus (https://www.winstonswish.org/coronavirus/)

Young Minds for parents/carers: Information on mental health and phone line

(https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/for-parents/)

Young Minds: Support and empowerment for young people and their mental health (https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/looking-after-yourself/)


Useful Documents

Executive Function Skills: Enhancing and Practising with Children from Infancy to Adolescence

A report published by the London Councils

Sleep relaxation for children: A guide for bedtime worries