World*Go*Round, Vol. 30, No. 5, December, 2004

Letter from the President 

I have just returned to Manchester from the mid- year meeting of the Executive Committee of ISPA that was held at Exeter University, the site for the July 2004 colloquium.

This edition of WGR contains information about our discussions at the meeting from our secretary, Sissy Hatzichristou. From this you will see that we had a productive meeting at which we discussed a range of topics related to the future development of ISPA. In particular we reviewed the excellent work being carried out by the ISPA committees and approved their budget for 2004. I have written to all committee chairs thanking them for their hard work but I would also like to thank them more publicly in this letter and encourage ISPA members to read about their work in WGR and on the website. They are always seeking support from members and so I hope you will consider joining a committee so that you can become involved further in the work of the association.

At the mid-year meeting we also spent a lot of time discussing arrangements for this summer’s colloquium. Bob Burden, the colloquium organiser, is well ahead with preparations, and this edition of WGR contains further details from Nevin Dolek, our colloquium coordinator, together with information about how to register. For my part I am really looking forward to the colloquium and to welcoming you all to my home country. Exeter is a really nice venue and the surrounding area provides a host of attractions for visitors. In addition, the theme for the colloquium will help to focus the thoughts of all school psychologists on ways in which we can work together to develop the profession for the benefit of all children, families and communities.

School Psychology in England and Wales

As the vast majority of readers of WGR come from countries outside the UK, I thought it would be helpful if I used this letter to give a brief account of the development of school psychology services in England and Wales so that those coming to Exeter will have some idea about the context in which school psychologists work in this country and about the challenges we are facing.

First of all, as some of you may know, we use the term “educational” rather than "school" psychologists. This probably reflects the fact that the vast majority of educational psychologists, (EPs) work for local education authorities (LEAs) and are not attached to a particular school or a cluster of schools. There are 158 LEAs in England and Wales each of which has an educational psychology service whose staff are employed by the LEA and accountable to it. Typically there is a principal EP who manages the EP service, is responsible for strategic planning and for cementing the link between the EPs in the service and the officers of the LEA. There will be a small number of senior EPs, depending on the size of the service, some specialist EPs and the remainder will work as main grade EPs. The number of EPs in the service depends on the pupil population in the LEA. Typically LEAs range in size from about 20,000 to 80,000 school children. Therefore some EPs services can have less than 10 EPs whereas others will have over 40. In 1978 the government recommended that the ratio of EPs to children aged 0- 19 should be no worse than 1 to 5,000. In practice ratios are better than this – around 1 to 4,000. However these are considerably inferior to our colleagues in many other parts Europe and in the USA.

Currently there are around 2,800 EPs in England and Wales. To become a fully trained educational psychologist in England and Wales it is necessary to have a bachelor’s degree in psychology (typically 3 years full time), a teaching qualification (1 year), at least two years teaching experience, and a masters degree in educational psychology (1 year). This training route is determined by the British Psychological Society (BPS) which is also responsible for setting out the criteria for the organisation of the one year masters degree programmes and for planning the core curriculum. These courses are accredited by the BPS and, without this accreditation, students completing the programmes would not be seen as being fully qualified and they would not be able to get a job as an EP. Those qualified EPs wishing to join the register of Chartered Educational Psychologists have to work for a year as an EP and receive supervision during thus period. All of the above indicates that training to become an EP in England and Wales is a long process, taking at least 6 years, and a lot longer if people have more than 2 years teaching experience.

As it is in many countries, one of the key roles for EPs in England and Wales is to carry out assessments of children who are thought to have some form of special educational need for whom extra educational provision might be needed.

This work is underpinned by government legislation, much in the same way that it is in the USA. LEAs have a statutory responsibly to ensure that the special needs of children in their area are provided for and this is the main reason why they employ EPs to carry out this work. However EPs also carry out a range of other tasks, for example working with families, carrying out therapeutic interventions, working with schools as organizations. In addition increasing numbers are being asked to act as expert witnesses in court cases, for example in advising on custody disputes.

There are many challenges facing the profession of educational psychology as we move into the 21st century. For example, there is continued concern among many EPs that too much of their work is devoted to carrying out assessments of children who may have special needs and that, as a result, they do not have time to undertake therapeutic and preventative work. This is linked to ongoing concerns about the nature of our training. Currently the vast majority of the professional training is packed into the last year – the one year masters degree. Plans have been agreed to extend this period to three years and to drop the requirement for EPs to be qualified and experienced teachers. This should enable EPs to be far better equipped to respond to the many and various demands that they face in their daily work. It will also bring our training into line with that of clinical psychologists. There are also growing concerns about the shortage of EPs. Currently, despite the huge demand from potential applicants wishing to train as EPs, insufficient numbers are being trained each year to fill the vacancies that exist in LEAs across the country. These and other concerns are very similar to those identified by the Futures conferences that have been organised by NASP which have sparked off a number of follow up events and publications. ISPA has taken a full part in these conferences and our involvement will be reflected in papers and symposia that will take place this summer in Exeter.

This brings me back to the 2004 colloquium! I hope this letter has given readers a flavour of the work of EPs in England and Wales and that this will provide a relevant background for those of you who will be coming to Exeter.

See you this summer!
Peter Farrell President of ISPA