Consulting with children and young people: Enabling educational psychologists to work collaboratively

Abstract

It is argued that the educational psychologist’s role is that of enabling children and young people to have greater control over and understanding of their own learning and its context. A key part of this process is that children and young people are encouraged to make informed choices about their interactions with educational psychologists and to have access to discussion, planning and recorded information that the educational psychologist has undertaken about or with them. Consideration is given to the psychological models underpinning collaborative practice and how consultation with children may relate to current interest in the consultative model of service delivery. A Table is presented for considering opportunities within professional practice for consulting with the child and some ideas are described of practical ways in which educational psychologists try to include children. Many ideas are those developed between the Educational Psychology Course Team and Educational Psychologists in Training (EPiTs) at Newcastle University. These ideas were initially presented in a workshop at the Division of Educational and Child Psychology Conference in January 2000.