2014 /15: Early Years
The Psychology Service aims to offer the best service to all of our colleagues and to ensure that the time which is available is used for the benefit of the most needy and vulnerable children and young people and their families.
We are making some changes to the ways in which we negotiate and manage our work during the school year 2014 / 15; they are explained in this document.
ProcessAll requests for new pieces of work from the Psychology Service will need to be made through our central allocation system from October 2014. This is because:
-we are going to use criteria (below) so that it is clear who is eligible to receive a service from us
-it increases our ability to use our resources for the highest priority work and helps us to ensure that we can meet our statutory requirements
-we are adding a new way of gaining advice from us which we hope will help early years settings and services to use us in the most productive way(s)
-we shall be using SLA online to help us to manage our work, a centralised system which will help us to be clearer how we are deploying our resources.
The process for requesting work involves the following steps:
-consultationwith an educational psychologist
-making a written request for our involvement
-triagecarried out within our team
-communicating the outcome of your request to you.
ConsultationWe need to discuss our possible involvement with you as a first step. Consultation should take place prior to sending in any written information.
Consultation will help us to establish with you:
-that the request meets our criteria
-the date by which we would need to receive a written request in order to gain access to a service within a certain range of dates / e.g., the next half term.
It could take place with:
-the senior practitioner for Early Years child and educational psychologist a “duty” team member (please see relevant information on our “helpline.”)
-principal or senior child and educational psychologist.
The consultation could result in:
-signposting
-advice
-an offer of relevant training
-agreement that it would be appropriate to make a RFI / complete CAF to send to us which could lead to direct intervention.
Recording of consultation.
We will make a note of (for our own records):
-the names of the people involved in the consultation
-the date it took place
-the agreed actions(s).
Parent / carer consent must be obtained before consulting us about an individual child / young person.
Making a written requestFollowing the consultation, we need to receive written information, preferably on a CAF.
We require certain pieces of information (specified below), which we advise you to be aware of prior to completing a CAF.
We will use this information to determine whether a request meets our criteria and whether it is a priority for us at the time. It is our policy to work with services / settings (on new cases) only after we have been consulted and then received written information.
We ask for written information to be provided for all new requests for work from us
which clearly indicates signed parent / carer agreement.
It is not essential to complete a form for children / young peoplewith whom we have already been involved, although it may well be a helpful and efficient way of providing us with additional(updated) information.
TriageTriage will involve the Principal / Senior EP and the Senior Practitioner EP for Early Years. It will take place as requests are available for discussion, and at least weekly, to ensure that there is minimal additional waiting time resulting from this step.
We will check that:
-the written information / CAF provides adequate data for us to determine that our criteria are met
-that there is an appropriate role for an EP
-that the service has the capacity to deliver the work requested (if the above is not possible) within the expected range of dates (i.e., the next half term.)
If we are able to make an offer of work to you, we will keep a record of:
-the date the request is received
-who is making the request
-the reason(s) for the request
-what is requested
-the outcomes sought
-the work we are offering to you.
The precise nature of the work carried out will always be negotiated directly between the service / setting and the EP delivering it.
Communication with youThe outcome of our triage will be communicated (by SLA online automatically) to the requester, including:
- the CEP who will do the work
- the approximate date range within which the work should take place.
Eligibility criteria: information we need to determine whether we can become involved
We need to have information about the strengths as well as the difficulties experienced by a child; we find thata focus on strengths is generally the most effective basis for action-planning.
Please include EYFS / any other relevant assessment information.
Before we accept a request for our involvement, we need to be able to establish thatthe severity / complexity of the child’s needs are at a level which are significantly outside developmental / age expectations, e.g:
-exceptionally or significantly low levels of cognitive functioning: the child will be working at a level commensurate with half their chronological age in at least one prime area of development (from EYFS / SOGS etc. – with recent assessments attached)
-severe or profound visual/hearing loss, severe medical needs or physical disability requiring specialist equipment and/or personal care support
-severe language impairment and / or severe social communication difficulties
-frequent and extreme inappropriate behaviours including the risk of causing harmto self and / or others.
We also need evidence that:
-appropriate other agencies available to Early Years settings have already been involved, e.g., Portage, Child Development Team, Behaviour Support Service, Primary Inclusion, paediatricians, therapy services(with recent reports attached)
-appropriate action (e.g IEPs) has already been takenat the SEN Support stage of the Code of Practice and the child is not making expected progress, despite this
-the parent / carers have been actively involved in what has already taken place as well as giving fully informed written consent for our involvement (and have been supplied with written information about our Service)
-there is a good reason to expect that our involvement will lead to improved outcome(s) for the child and / or their family and that professionals will be better equipped to meet a child’s needs following our involvement
-a CAF has been completed and signed.
If we are not clear that a request meets these criteria we will contact you to ask for more information, either verbally or in writing.
Requests which provide clear evidence to establish that all of the criteria are met will receive a positive, speedy response from us.
N.b., Referrals for a second opinion regarding possible ASD will be accepted via CDU multi-agency social communication meeting.
Your comments / questionsWe welcome your comments about the processes which we are using and would suggest that you talk to:
Dr Lynda Dodd, Senior Practitioner Child and Educational Psychologist for Early Years
Mark Hancock,Principal Child and Educational Psychologist
Dr Martin Powell, Senior Child and Educational Psychologist.
Telephone: 0161 474 3870
Email:
Stockport Council – Psychology Service – Request for Involvement Guidance Notes 2014/5 – page 1