UCL Educational Psychology Group Newsletter

Welcome to the third edition of the UCL Educational Psychology Group newsletter!

Every term we will bring you news and forthcoming events from the Group. We hope this will keep our graduates, DECPsy and DEdPsy course members, tutors, Supervisors, Research Advisors and other affiliates in touch and will prove an enjoyable and informative read.

In September 2010 we were joined by three new members of our tutor team and 14 new DECPsy trainees. Many of you on both Doctorate programmes will now know Research Methods and Statistics tutor Dr Celia Morgan, who joined us from UCL Clinical Psychology, whilst the DECPsy fold welcomed new Professional & Academic tutors Antonia Cobbald (EP Barking and Dagenham) and Sarah Geiger (SEP Barnet) this term. And last but by no means least our fourth cohort of DECPsy trainees: Claire Casey, Chantal Corbett, Maeve D'Arcy, Emma Gore Langton, Isabelle Harding, Ama Hirsch, Liz Roberts, Jo Roberts, Amna Sarwar, Stephanie Satariano, Caroline Sivasundaram, Michelle Stott, Denita Whitelock and Helen Woodhouse. Our 2 new 10-13 cohort reps are Ama and Jo. We wish these already not-so-new faces a warm and slightly belated welcome!

We would also like to offer our very best wishes to outgoing team members Dr Michelle Sancho, who has returned to West Berkshire full-time but who we look forward to seeing in guest tutor capacity in future teaching sessions, and Dr Souhila Messaoud-Galusi who made an exciting move to Washington DC this summer.

There was much to celebrate in summer 2010 with our second cohort of 17 DECPsy trainees successfully completing their doctoral degrees and embarking on their careers as fully fledged Educational Psychologists. The end of year party on 16th July featured much fun and entertainment from the group of 17, including a trainee trivia guessing game (who would have suspected that Jenny Baulcomb was related to Charles Dickins, Shane Gallagher was in Cilla Black's Blind Date, Linsday McBreen was a green belt in karate, Adrian Harrison was going to train to be a priest, or

Corrinne Twomey weighed 11 lbs at birth?!) as well as a cohort awarded certificate for each trainee and of course an iconic photographic moment on the Bedford Way steps, cake and celebratory champagne. Congratulations to the class of 07-10 - including (to name but a few) group-voted "class geek" Shane, "glamour queen" Louisa, "best dressed" Adrian and "group mother" Caroline. In your (whiteboard) words "You Did It!" (we knew you would!)

Click here to see a montage of 07-10 party photographs plus the group's 'on the steps' portrait

We were also delighted to welcome back many of our 2009 DECPsy and DEdPsy graduates for the Educational Psychology graduation ceremony on 3rd

September. Pictured left: DECPsy 06-09 reunion - hats off! - accompanied by Prof Norah Frederickson and Dr Sandra Dunsmuir. Pictured right: some graduates from the DEdPsy programme: Drs Sangeeta Silva, Gill Matson and Laura Warren, with - veteran of many a UCL graduation picture - Dr Sean Cameron.

Click here to view more Ed Psych 2010 graduation ceremony photos from both courses.

The summer/autumn of 2010 has seen something close to 'wedding fever' across both the DEdPsy and DECPsy programmes. The Ed Psych marital season kicked off in May with recent DECPsy 07-10 graduate Adrian Harrison marrying fiance Melissa (pictured left) on the 22nd of the month. Six days later, recent DEdPsy graduate Despina Hadjigeorgiou tied the knot in her home town of Paphos, Cyprus to Andreas. The couple's extensive guest list included DEdPsy Course Director Sean Cameron who reported the event to be "a fairytale wedding... just think of Hollywood, Bollywood and more than a dash of Dallas, then double it and this exotic combination was a rough approximation of the big event!" The ceremony took place in a tiny ancient church, the reception, for 1000 to 2000

guests, was held in the landscaped and manicured gardens of the Amnathus Beach Hotel in Paphos against a background of bright sunshine, a cloudless sky and an azure Med and the wedding supper (for a mere 350 guests) was in a futuristic dining hall in the hotel itself. Sean says of his former tutee's attire "I can't even begin to describe the stunning gown that Despina wore. All I can say is that when she arrived at UCL on day 1 of her DEdPsy course, she found that someone in Registration had mis-spelt her family name as 'Hadjigorgeous'. Well, on Saturday the 28th of May the misspelling was correct... she was!" As this photo indeed proves!

Next it was the turn of DEdPsy 2008 course member Tamsin Pescott-Day, now Cudmore-Day, who married James on 31st July. A beautiful church wedding in Twickenham (pictured) and reception in East Horsley, Surrey, was followed by "an amazing honeymoon spent sightseeing in San Francisco, a bit of gambling and sunshine in Las Vegas followed by a stunning 10 night stay in Mexico...then a return to earth with a thump!"

Hot on Tamsin's heels, two current DECPsy trainees had August weddings this year. First, on 6th August DECPsy 09-12 cohort member Holly Jeffery became Holly Harris when she got married to Rich at Lains Barn in Oxfordshire. The happy couple (left) were married in the beautiful barn before enjoying Pimms on the lawn surrounded by family, friends and many of Holly's fellow DECPsy colleagues. Holly and Rich then headed off on their honeymoon to Langkawi in Malaysia for two weeks.

Then it was the turn of the 08-11 gang, with Ciara O'Donnell, now Ciara, Close, marrying Brian on the 19th August in Co. Derry, Northern Ireland. The couple (right) had a fantastic day and were both delighted to be joined by some of Ciara's fellow course members for the celebrations (or craic!) Ciara and Brian then spent two fabulous weeks honeymooning in Kenya, taking in a three day safari on the Masai Mara and the rest relaxing on Mombasa beach.

And the wedding bonanza continued into the autumn, first with DECPsy 07-10 graduate Claire Costello marrying Padraig on 11th September. The couple (pictured left) celebrated their marriage amongst family and friends in a scenic setting in south Limerick, Ireland. The rain stayed clear (almost!) and a fun day was enjoyed by all. An energetic crowd ensured the party continued until the early hours of the morning! This meant that the rest provided by the couple's honeymoon in Bali was well needed.

And finally, 2 October was the turn of DEdPsy course member Jason Swale, now Jason Harding-Swale, and Rich who held their Civil Partnership in Brighton, a big party shared by 160 friends and family. The wedding was actually a double celebration in light of the couple's fantastic family news (see below).

And...if that wasn't enough romance for you...our congratulations go to DEdPsy 2008 course member Sandy Tahan and fiance Karim Efat, and DECPsy 06-09 graduate Gemma Castleman and fiance Justin on their recent engagements...look out for more Ed Psych wedding news in summer 2011!

We were delighted to hear of some further new arrivals for one of our DEdPsy course members and two of our DECPsy 06-09 graduates.

Baby Theo James (pictured left) was born to Claire Knowler and hubby on 10th July, weighing in at 7lb 3oz (although the couple were originally mistakenly told he weighed 8lb 3oz!). And exactly one month later, on 10th August, baby Ella Maryam Selmi was born to Kathryn Arsenault and husband - mother and daughter are pictured right.

And on 16th September the Adoption Order for Jason Harding-Swale and Rich Harding-Swale's youngest daughter was made, making her, like her older sister, legally theirs. The sisters, Chloe (almost one) and Lottie (almost three) who are both pictured right, have been with the couple since the ages of 14 months and 3 weeks, when they were placed as foster children with the view to adoption.

Our warmest congratulations go to all three couples...as well as to DEdPsy graduate Gill Matson who has recently become grandmother to her fourth grandchild, Oliver James.

The Report of the DECP Working Group on Supervision, led by our very own Dr Sandra Dunsmuir and Jane Leadbetter, will be launched at the DECP Conference, 11-14 January 2011, in Newcastle. The report is entitled 'Professional Supervision: Guidelines for Practice for Educational Psychologists'. See the Events section for more details of this conference, which DECPsy trainees are invited by UCL to attend.

‘Creating the Conditions for effective work by locum educational psychologists' was published by DEdPsy graduate Maureen Liepens and DEdPsy Co-Director Prof Tony Cline in the September 2010 edition of Educational Psychology in Practice. Maureen, who recently started a new role in Northamptonshire, has also had a report on her DEdPsy thesis research accepted for publication in School Psychology International, where we hope it will appear next year.

Congratulations to DEdPsy course members Kathryn Gibb on her move to a post with special responsibility in Redbridge and Emma Kennedy on her elevation to Head of Service in Southwark, as well as for her organisation of the excellent and well received symposium on Consultation, held in July as part of the International School Psychology Service conference in Trinity College Dublin. DECPsy Course Director Sandra Dunsmuir also presented at this conference, with UEL's Mary Robinson, on Multi-Professional Assessment and Intervention in the Early Years. This coincided with several other conferencing/professional excursions overseas by members of the DEdPsy programme - not least Tony and Sean who have been much in demand in the low countries and beyond! Tony followed a presentation on Mental Health Issues in Schools to an expert meeting at the OECD Headquarters in Paris (encountering multiple security checks and an automated badging system) with a paper on Vignetter Methodology with other members of the ex-Luton Childhood Research Team at a European conference in the University of Utrecht in September (where the security ethos was rather more relaxed). Meanwhile Sean spent a long weekend in Bruges, venue of the Pillars of Parenting Social Enterprise planning annual meeting, this August. Some hard core business plan constructing and cycling ensued for Sean and his business partner Colin Maginn in the medieval city. However the pair won't tell us whether they succumed to the 'pressure' of sampling all 365 national beers whilst discussing challenging business issues or not!

Earlier this year, DEdPsy 2009 course member Siobhan Currie delivered some teacher training with a difference, travelling to the town of Gulu in northern Uganda to work with Invisible Children, a charity working to restore secondary education in the north, where many children were orphaned or abducted into the Lords Resistance Army and forced to become child soldiers. Siobhan's colleague in Northamptonshire Stevan Radoja had written a curriculum called 'KOBS' - Knowledge of Behaviour and Self - to help teachers to address the social, emotional and behavioural needs of the many affected and traumatised children now trying to access education in the region, which the pair went went out to train local teachers to deliver. Siobhan and Stevan were delighted that the workshops were extremely well recieved and the teachers commented how helpful including these subjects in the curriculum would be. KOBS is supported by the Ministry of Education in Uganda and an officer from the ministry attended the training. Siobhan found the whole experience a very exciting and interesting one; in particular contact with such dedicated and inspiring teachers working in such difficult circumstances. The training group is pictured above.

In this Issue:

Autumn 2010