Senior Educational Psychologist

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Job Description

Organisation: Leicestershire County Council

Work Location: County Hall, Glenfield, Leicestershire, LE3 8RF

Worker Category: Hybrid Worker

Salary: Soulbury B 5-8 (+ up to 3 SPA)

Working Hours: 37 hours per week

Contract Type: Permanent

Closing Date: 28th April 2025

Interview Date(s): 12th May (in person at County Hall)

About the Role

Leicestershire are seeking applications from Educational Psychologists who are seeking a change or who want to take the next step in their career development. Leicestershire EPS (LEPS) is a service that provides great opportunities for diverse, meaningful and innovative EP work within a supportive environment. The aim of our service is to provide access to high-quality psychological practice to a range of partners, to improve the lives of children and families within our local communities. This post offers a fantastic opportunity to join our Educational Psychology Leadership Team with opportunities to undertake a broad range of leadership activities across a range of systems, enabling us to maximise our reach and impact.

You will:

• Line manage and supervise a team of Educational Psychologists, acting as a leader, role model and mentor within the service.
• Lead on critical areas of service activity and service development, drawing on your personal strengths and skills.
• Contribute to the monitoring and evaluation of service delivery (inc. quality assurance activity).
• Balance a caseload of work, alongside team management activity and wider strategic and systems work.
• Work closely with the Principal Educational Psychologist, supporting key decision making and representing LEPS in critical spaces within the LA and across the Local Area Partnership.
• Contribute to large scales projects and transformation programmes such as PINS, the LLR Neuro-developmental Inclusion workstream and Shaping SEND Futures

A DBS enhanced check for a regulated activity is required for this post.

For information on our approach to the recruitment of ex-offenders, please see our policy statement.

About You

To apply for this post, you must:

• Professional postgraduate qualification in Educational Psychology, and HCPC registration as a Practitioner Psychologist.
• Significant experience as an Educational Psychologist in an LA environment, with expertise in applying psychological skills at child, group, and systems levels.
• Proven leadership experience, including project and/or people management leading to positive outcomes.
• The ability to work flexibly, decisively and independently, demonstrating a collaborative approach with the ability to develop successful partnerships
• Detailed understanding of relevant legislation, guidance and policy in relation to SEND and safeguarding, with the ability carry out all duties in line with LCC Safeguarding policies and procedures.
• A commitment to Equal Opportunities, with the ability to apply this to strategic work and day-to-day situations

Leicestershire Educational Psychology Service

We are a partially traded service, with demand for our commissioned work growing year on year. Our offer currently includes:

• Service level agreements with individual schools including specialist provisions
• Statutory work undertaken for the SENA Service
• A traded training offer to support inclusive practice in schools
• Accredited ELSA training and ELSA supervision.
• MELSA Training
• Whole School Approach project work in partnership with Public Health
• Support to the Local Authority including our Critical Incident Response Team and membership of Inclusion Forums

Leicestershire EPs have access to:

• Excellent whole-service and individual CPD opportunities
• Structured time-allocation model promoting well-being and a balance of work
• Regular and high-quality individual supervision sessions and access to peer supervision
• Well-appointed central office base and first-class facilities within County Hall, Glenfield
• Local 'touchdown' bases across the county to reduce travel time
• Up-to-date ICT equipment for mobile / agile working
• Flexible, family friendly working arrangements
• Social events organised by team members to promote connectedness

You must also have an understanding of, and commitment to, equality, diversity and inclusion.

In addition, we also expect you to share our commitment to our values and will ask you to evidence when you have demonstrated them as part of the selection process.

Reasonable adjustments will be considered for applicants with a disability.

We are committed to welcoming individuals who embrace equality, diversity, and inclusion. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

Interested in Flexible Working?

We are keen to support employees to balance their working life with other commitments. Therefore, wherever possible, we will consider working arrangements that suit an individual's personal circumstances whilst still meeting the needs of the Council. If you would like to discuss the possible flexible working options that might be applicable to this role, please contact the person named below. This may include requests for term-time working, part-time hours, compressed hours, flexible start and finish times, home/remote working, etc.

Every role within the Council has a defined working style which determines where they can work. The worker category applicable to this post is detailed in the above advert. You can find out more about our worker categories in the Our Working Styles page on our career site.

For more information or an informal discussion, please contact:

Dr Helen Tyson Principal Educational Psychologist

Telephone: 0116 305 5100

Email: Helen.Tyson@leics.gov.uk

How to Apply

Leicestershire County Council is an inclusive organisation which is on a journey to embed and celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion at every level. We warmly welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, as having a diverse workforce with different perspectives and ideas is fundamental to our values and enriches the services we offer our communities. We particularly welcome applicants from Ethnically Diverse and LGBTQ+ communities and people with disabilities to create a balanced workforce and one that reflects the communities we serve. Applicants with a disability who meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Employer Scheme.

To apply for this job, please click on the apply button. You will need to upload a supporting statement as part of your application which explains how you meet the criteria listed in the 'About You' section above. For more information, see the How to Apply section on our career site.

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

If you have any technical issues when trying to apply for this post or you want to request an application pack in an alternative format, please contact our Employee Service Centre by telephoning 0300 3030222 (select option 2) or raising a ticket via our online portal: https://emss.org.uk/support.

By applying for this post, you agree to our Terms and Conditions.

About Us

About Leicestershire County Council

Leicestershire County Council is a Disability Confident, Menopause Friendly, Mindful Employer, Fostering Friendly, Forces Friendly, and Cycle Friendly organisation. In August 2021, we also signed up to the Race at Work Charter. We are strongly committed to promoting equality and opportunity, championing employee wellbeing and investing in staff training and development.

Our aim is to work with communities and partners to deliver public services that make Leicestershire the best possible place to live and work for everyone. Our employees play a key role in supporting this goal and helping us deliver the vital services we provide to the people of Leicestershire.

For further information on what it's like to work for us and the benefits we offer, please refer to the following:

Our Recruitment Process
Our Organisational Values
Our Employee Benefits
Working for Us