Norfolk County Council

Education Department

Pupil Access and Community Services

Norfolk Education Psychological Service

1. Introduction

1.1 In its document 'The Role of the Education Authority in School Education' the DfES states that the role of the LEAs should include, under 'Special Education Needs':

• "ensuring that individual children's need are quickly and accurately identified and matched by provision". This it says, can be achieved in many cases by delegating funding to schools but some children with specific learning needs, emotional needs and more complex needs "... require support from specialist teachers and other professionals";

• "running high quality Education Psychology and support teaching services, linking with social and health services and planning - often across authorities - the use of scarce resources so that individual children can benefit from coordinated provision through their school";

• "developing close inter-agency partnerships with health and social services, to ensure that children with complex medical, emotional and behaviour needs and their families enjoy a coordinated service focused on their needs".

1.2 In the same paper under 'Educating Excluded Pupils and Pupil Welfare' the DfES states that the LEA's role includes:

• "ensuring that suitable education is provided for excluded pupils, in a pupil referral unit or otherwise";

• "ensuring that ... excluded pupils return to school when ready to do so";

• "ensuring suitable provision for pupils with behavioural difficulties, including providing advice and resources to schools, where appropriate through pupil referral units".

1.3 It is these functions, and others, that the Psychological Service fulfils for children and schools in Norfolk as part of the commitment of the Local Authority to raise standards of pupil achievement and promote inclusion.

2. Statement of Purpose

The Psychological Service exists:

To enhance the learning of all children and young people by providing a range of high quality practical and applied psychological and specialist teaching and therapeutic services.

Specifically to:

• Support children and young people who are vulnerable and who have additional educational needs.

• Advise, support and empower their parents/carers and school/early years settings staff.

• Help schools, early years settings and the Department to develop appropriate systems and approaches to ensure the best progress for children and young people who are vulnerable.

3. Composition

3.1 One of the LEA’s core Services, the Psychological Service is a unique multi-professional Service, members of which work in a complementary way to ensure a range of support for children and young people and those who care for and teach them.

3.2 Professional Groups

• Educational Psychologists • Psychological Service Social Workers

• Advisory and Support Teachers • Education Coordinators

• Specialist Support Assistants - behaviour, literacy difficulties and autistic difficulties

• Portage Workers • Early Years SEN Coordinators

3.3 Key Statistics - Staff and time

• 123 fte staff

• 55 additional fte staff employed to take forward specific initiatives

• a total of 205,000 hours (31,500 half day sessions) directed at supporting children and young people, their parents/carers and schools

4. Principles Underpinning the Service's Work

The Service should:

• Apply psychology to promote the attainment and healthy emotional development of children and young people

• Work in a graduated way from prevention to work with children experiencing difficulties

• Ensure early intervention for children with difficulties

• Ensure its work is linked with LEA strategies aimed at meeting local and national priorities for raising standards and promoting inclusion

• Ensure its work is coordinated with and complementary to that of other LEA Services

• Be delivered in schools and early years settings as well as in Local Authority and family settings

• Be accessible to users independently of schools and other settings

• Focus on consultation, assessment and intervention

• Embrace multi-agency approaches

• Focus on the greatest needs and ensure equality of access to and fair allocation of its support

5. Organisation and Management

5.1 The rationale for the Local Authority maintaining multi-disciplinary specialist support services involves the ability to:

• maintain a focus on ensuring that children's needs are addressed and therefore ensure that the LEA's responsibilities are fulfilled and it is not vulnerable to litigation (Phelps vs Hillingdon)

• deploy resources according to need anywhere in the County

• focus on longer-term preventive activities as well as shorter-term assessment and intervention work

• ensure genuine multi-disciplinary working within the organisation and across agencies

• recruit, develop and retain specialist professional staff

• utilise the benefits of scale in developing and deploying staff

5.2 The Psychological Service is centrally organised to ensure maximum consistency, the recruitment and development of staff and the ability to focus expertise and resources wherever in the County they are needed. It is locally deployed in 16 bases to ensure knowledge of schools and their communities and maximum responsiveness.

5.3 Service management is through a multi professional Service Management Team (SMT), members of which have both Area and County responsibilities. This ensures that the work of all parts of the Service is coordinated and consistent as well as providing the means for developing new approaches.

5.4 Area management is effected through a two person Area Management Team which has responsibility for most operations in an Education Area.

5.5 Day to day professional support of staff is achieved through team leaders at each base.

6. Service Delivery Framework

6.1 The service delivery model has been developed over time in response to changing context and demands and is designed to ensure a number of features particularly:

• regular contact with all schools to support their work

• targeted support for particular vulnerable groups

• an ability to focus on prevention as well as on interventions

• the ability to develop, maintain and deploy expertise and resources as and where needed

6.2 The recently introduced tiered service delivery model achieves these outcomes.

6.3 Level 1 – key features

• regular planned contact with schools (knowledge, familiarity, trust, negotiation)

• 23% of Service time

• time shared between schools on basis of needs

• regular contact by a School Support Team (SST)

• EP/teacher ratio of delivery – 1:2

• one member is coordinating contact for each school

• one member is key worker to coordinate support for each referred child

• key worker identified to ensure continuity of support for children with a long term disability

• graduated range of activities

• prevention, assessment, early intervention

• roles = consultation, advice, facilitation (or onward referral to NPS or other specialist services)

• managed by SST members (autonomy, responsibility), responsible to Area Management Team (AMT)

6.4 Level 1 - functions fulfilled for LEA by these activities

• support for the work of schools (mainstream and special) at School Action and School Action Plus stages of the Code of Practice:

- preventive work in schools

- help with planning

- advice to schools and parents

- assessment

- short-term interventions

- facilitating access to other support

- coordination of support for individuals

• support/coordination for referred children with a disability

• statutory assessment and review

6.5 Level 2 - key features

• Child/young person focused

• Expertise and resources targeted on the vulnerable and highest need

• 64% of Service time

• cross area flexibility

• specialist focus

• development and intervention activities

• managed by AMT, responsible to SMT

• Set Activities

- off-site teaching of excluded pupils (29%)

- support for children in public care (3%)

- early years/Portage (6%)

- support for children placed out County (2%)

• Directed Activities (allocated specialist and intensive work with particular individuals and/or institutions)

- EBD/Disaffection and bullying (11%)

- learning difficulties (7%)

- autistic spectrum disorder (6%)

6.6 Level 2 - functions fulfilled for LEA by these activities

• specialist and/or prolonged assessment

• specialist and/or prolonged interventions (LD, EBD, bullying, ASD) including to prevent exclusions

• full-time off-site teaching for excluded pupils, sessional and part-time teaching of pupils at risk of exclusion

• SEN support for early years settings

• support for young children with developmental delay and their families

• support for children who are in public care to ensure that their attainments are raised and that they receive full-time education

• support for children placed out of the County to ensure that they receive appropriate education

• monitoring the effectiveness of provision for children with additional needs

6.7 Level 3 – key features

• whole County, investing in the future, developing expertise and consistency

• 7% of Service time

• delivery of highly specialist activities on cross-County basis

• allocation of staff to meet acute need on a cross-County basis

• framework setting for all specialist activities (learning difficulties, emotional and behavioural difficulties, anti bullying work, autistic spectrum disorder) i.e. establishing aims, approaches and required skills for all key specialist activities, including a framework and competencies for Level 1 delivery

• staff assigned to Level 2 specialist activities are members of Level 3 development team

• activities managed by coordinators, responsible to Service Management Team

6.8 Level 3 - functions fulfilled for LEA by these activities

• support for children and schools following traumatic events

• advice and support for NPS staff and schools regarding CAL

• support for the LEA’s school improvement strategy

• support for students at HE/FE establishments

• training on positive handling strategies

• other training and specialist conferences

• specialist literacy and other initiatives

• advice on the development of provision and approaches

• ensuring that our work is expert, in line with the best national practice and that expertise is focused and developed

6.9 Facilitation activities – key features

• facilitating/supporting Service activities

• 6 % of Service time

• professional development planning, management and support

• management and support (County, area, team)

• ensuring Service effectiveness

• ensuring staff well being

• infrastructure development and maintenance

6.10 Facilitation activities - functions fulfilled for LEA by these activities

• ensuring that staff are supported and are helped to develop

• ensuring that the totality of the Service’s work is coordinated, consistent and of the highest quality

6.11 Partnerships

In delivering these activities the Psychological Service is involved in a range of developmental and operational partnerships including with:

• Norwich Excellence Partnership

• the two Education Actions Zones (literacy Catchup projects and training activities)

• the Early Years Partnership (SEN support for early years settings)

• Voluntary Organisations (Earthsea therapeutic centre, Waveney Valley Dyslexia Association, Down Link)

• parents (casework and Parent Focus Groups)

• the Advisory Service (planning, training, conferences, literacy initiatives)

• Norfolk HE and FE establishments

• Social Services (planning and support for children in public care, Earthsea House)

• Health Authority (planning provision for children with autistic spectrum disorder, Portage, strategic planning)

6.12 The activities carried out at Levels 2 and 3 are focused directly on vulnerable children and help the Local Authority fulfil its statutory and other responsibilities as the 'champion' for these children and their families. For this reason, delegation of services for this group of children would need to be considered cautiously