"...asked to take on the training of our profession": Principal Educational Psychologists' views - hopes, expectations and concerns - about employing Trainee Educational Psychologists

Educational Psychology is a profession in the United Kingdom (UK) for
which the Government's Children's Workforce Development Council has
posited an important role in supporting professionals across the children's
workforce in order to improve outcomes for children and young people. At
a time when much had been changing for the children's workforce, the
process by which Educational Psychologists' initial training takes place
was altered. These changes had, in turn, created further demands on
Educational Psychology Services as trainers.
Drawing on themes discovered through this research I propose a model
describing factors likely to affect what happens in Educational Psychology
Services where Trainee Educational Psychologists are employed. I
suggest that these factors could create virtuous circles or vicious cycles for
Trainee Educational Psychologists, Educational Psychologists and
Educational Psychology Services as a result of their involvement in the
new training arrangements.
In this research I aimed to discover what nine Principal Educational
Psychologists' hopes, expectations and concerns were about these new
arrangements, how they had prepared to play their part in them and how
they had experienced this situation.
Working with these Principal Educational Psychologists I devised a semistructured
interview, data from which were analysed using Thematic
Analysis to discover surface themes in their answers. Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis was used to gain a picture of their life world
and their experience of what was happening around them.
These Principal Educational Psychologists had found planning for the new
arrangements difficult due to a range of factors related to the
arrangements themselves and to other change going on within their Local Authorities and beyond. Their talk suggested that whilst Trainee
Educational Psychologists had been expected to have positive effects
upon Educational Psychology Services, their experience, learning and
development could have varied markedly, dependent upon what had
happened in the Service they worked in. Their talk also indicated that
much of what had happened around them had been confusing, at times
verging on unbelievable and that the behaviour of Educational
Psychologists and the wider profession might have contributed to the
difficult situation they described.
The Principal Educational Psychologists' talk also indicated other issues
that might have affected Trainee Educational Psychologist experience and
learning and so their initial and subsequent trajectories of learning and
professional identity.
I conclude the report with additional questions that need addressing and
suggestions for further research.

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