In this Issue:

UCL Educational Psychology Website and Communications

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @ucledpsych! We are always delighted to receive new items to tweet from our community so please contact the admin team if you have an item you would like to share.

Youtube channel

We have recently launched a new Youtube Channel for the Educational Psychology department, with all of our student and staff videos now added. Click here to view our channel!

History of Educational Psychology page

You can now read about the History of Educational Psychology at UCL on our website. To view the new page click here.

Your news and views are always welcome - please send us your comments!

Spring/Summer 2017

New Faces and Staff Changes within the Group

In January 2017 we were joined by our nineteenth cohort of CPD Doctorate course members. A warm and very belated welcome to Ricardo Almeida, Emma Atkiss, Elizabeth Bean, Veronica Bidwell, Aidan Corr, Ruth Fergusson, Joanne Frehill, Rosalind Goodwin, Katy Grayson, Lucy Harding, Alison McCoy and Esra Uzsayilir.

On Monday 10th July we said goodbye to Cassie Wood from the admin team, and Owen Davis, Sarah Geiger and Jennifer Greene from the tutor team. A leaving do was held at the lovely Mary Ward House in Bloomsbury. Cassie will be working at the University of Surrey, Owen will be retiring from his position at UCL, Sarah will be taking the Doctorate programme herself and Jennifer is moving to Singapore later this summer. We wish them all well in the future, and they will be missed from the team!

Our warmest congratulations to our Director Sandra Dunsmuir who has been promoted to Professor of Educational and Child Psychology!

Personal News

As always, we have some exciting personal news in the Group, including baby and wedding news!

Firstly, congratulations to DECPsy Academic & Professional Tutor Dr Laura Grahamslaw on the birth of her daughter Penelope Alice Scott, who arrived at 00:18 on Wednesday 12th April, weighing 6lb 6ozs and ten days overdue! Click here for some more photos of the very cute Penelope!

Congratulations also to DECPsy Academic & Professional Tutor Dr Heloise Morgan, now mum to little Maximilien who was born on the 4th of July! Click here to see more photos of the lovely Maximilien!

In more baby news, DEdPsy graduate Dr Leanne Cort gave birth to Rosie Cort on the 20th March, weighing in at 6lb 15oz. Click here for a lovely photo of Rosie at 1 day old! Congratulations Leanne!

Wedding news next, from DECPsy 14-17 cohort member Dannika Osei who tied the knot in December 2016. Dannika and Jeffrey had a beautiful winter wedding, and jetted off to the Maldives for some sunshine after their big day. Dannika's fellow trainees were also there to celebrate the happy couple, including Hannah Lichwa from the 15-18 cohort who was maid of honour! Congratulations Mr & Mrs Agyeman! Click here for more photos of the day.

Some news from Prof Norah Frederickson on her recent travels next, which have taken her to Singapore! Norah has been consulting with the National Institute of Education and Ministry of Education on psychological assessment and special educational needs, and working with several UCL Educational Psychology alumni. This photo shows the participants at a working dinner with senior Ministry of Education participants. On Norah's right is the Singapore Minister of State for Education Dr Janil Puthucheary and on her left is Dr Mariam Aljunied, Principal Educational Psychologist (Psychological Services). On the far right is Dr Suet Ling Chong, Principal Educational Psychologist (Special Education). Both Mariam and Suet Ling are graduates of the MSc (Educational Psychology) 1994/5. In addition Mariam completed her PhD with Norah and Uta Frith 2003-6.

This second photo from Norah shows participants in a seminar on models of psychological service delivery to schools. In addition to Mariam (second right), UCL alumni are: first left Dr Fiona Cheam MSc Educational Psychology and DEdPsy (2008 cohort), second left Dr Vivien Yang (DECPsy 2008-11) and fourth left Dr Lacretia Loke (DECPsy 2013-16).

News from DEdPsy student Paula Williams (2014 cohort) next, who has moved authority and is now working 2.5 days a week in Milton Keynes. Paula has also set up an Independent Psychology service, Psychology4learning, with a number of EP colleagues with an aim to provide service to the community and offer EPs variety to their work. The service has just celebrated their first year of trading, and will be offering free training to staff in secondary schools to help them become more effective skilled helpers.

And finally, congratulations to DEdPsy student Dawn Collard (2010 cohort), who has been appointed Deputy Principal EP in Hounslow!

Publications and Research

Congratulations to our DEdPsy and DECPsy trainees/graduates and staff on the following recent publications:

Prof. Sandra Dunsmuir (Director) - Dunsmuir, S., Frederickson, N. & Lang, J. (2017). Meeting Current Challenges in School Psychology Training: The Role of Problem Based Learning School Psychology Review.

Dunsmuir, S., Atkinson, C., Lang, J., Warhurst, A. & Wright, S. (2017). Objective Structured Professional Assessments for Trainee Educational Psychologists: an Evaluation Educational Psychology in Practice.

Rice, F., Davidovich, S. & Dunsmuir, S. (2017). Emotion regulation in childhood and adolescent depression: maintaining equilibrium between positive and negative affect. In C.A. Essau, S. Leblanc & T.H. Ollendick (Eds.), Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents. Oxford University Press.

Dr Leanne Cort (DEdPsy 2010 graduate) - Cort, L. and Cline, T. (2017). Exploring the impact of domestic abuse on the mother role: how can educational psychologists contribute to this area? Educational Psychology in Practice, 33 (2), 167-179 DOI 10.1080/02667363.2017.1279127

Hannah Lichwa (DECPsy 15-18 trainee) - Pellicano, E., Kenny, L., Brede, J., Klaric, E, Lichwa, H. & McMillin, R. (2017). Executive function predicts school readiness in autistic and typical preschool children. Cognitive Development. DOI 10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.02.003

For the past five years, DECPsy course members have taken part in a course workshop on 'Achieving positive outcomes for children and young people in public care'. As most child and educational psychologists are well aware, these maltreated young people are some of the most vulnerable in our society today, with life-limiting mental and physical health problems and low educational attainments: sadly, too many end up homeless, jobless, friendless, missing or incarcerated. The Pillars of Parenting Social Enterprise (directors Dr Sean Cameron and Colin Maginn) is a psychology-based approach, involving educational and clinical psychologists as consultants, which seeks to empower residential carers and foster/ adoptive parents to understand and meet the complex needs of these looked-after children (www.pillarsofparenting.co.uk). Encouraging results from projects in Hampshire and Kirklees have been obtained and this year, the exciting news this year is that the PoP model has been adapted for the New Zealand context and a pilot scheme is being set up there by an Exeter-trained Educational Psychologist. The invigorating challenge here is to ensure that the model fits with the cultures of both the Maori and the post-Treaty of Waitangi Treaty settlers from European and other countries.

Conferences and Events

The Annual BPS TEP and DECP conference took place in January in Harrogate. Course tutor Dr Gavin Morgan co-ordinated the conference for the BPS. There was a very good representation from recent UCL trainees at both events. Dr Rheanne Jalali presented her research '"They won't let me back..." A Comparison of Student Perceptions across Primary and Secondary Pupil Referral Units' at both the trainee and full conference. Dr Isabella Macdonald led a workshop at the DECP conference on her research 'Same-Sex, Same Difference? The Experiences of Same-Sex Families in Schools' and also Dr Nikki Collingwood presented her research entitled 'Thinking Your Problems Away: The impact of a multi-dimensional maths intervention to address affective, metacognitive and performance factors'. Additionally Gavin led a workshop into the Role of EPs in contributing to the construct of the Velcro TA narrative. Most of our current Y1 of trainees made the long trip north for the Trainee EP day and all found the day to be very informative and helpful, as they too begin their own research journey!

Back in March 2017, Dr Antonia Cobbald was invited to join a discussion on Woman's Hour about exam stress and revision. You can listen back to the recording, titled 'Parenting: How do you help teenagers revise for exams?', here.

CPD Leading Edge Psychology Day - 28th March 2017 - "What does resilience mean for educational psychologists? Concepts and applications"

This year's Leading Edge Day was regarding the theme of resilience and what this means for EPs. Educational psychologists are not alone in frequently appealing to the concept of resilience. It often forms part of a psychological perspective on a child or young person's circumstances and may contribute to recommendations about approaches to improving those circumstances. At the same time there are a growing number of commercially available preventative programmes being used in schools, which aim to strengthen resilience. Many of these are promoted if not delivered by educational psychologists. In the undoubted appeal of the concept, there is a tendency to overlook clarity about what it means because of a blurring between every day talk about resilience and perspectives on resilience emanating from research. The risk, then, is the assumption that in discussion, little more is required than the word itself. What happens, though, when we scratch the surface? Do we know and more particularly, do our service users know, what we mean when we talk about resilience? This successful and extremely well attended day examined current research, considered the concept of resilience and how that concept is used by EPs in practice.

Keynote speakers included Professor Sir Michael Rutter (consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital and Professor of Developmental Psychopathology), Professor Ingrid Schoon (UCL Institute of Education and the Social Science Centre Berlin), Tony Mancini (Witherslack Group and Focus Psychology), Anne Peake (Oxfordshire Children's Services) and Marc Chevreau and Pauline Wigglesworth (Blackpool Educational Psychology Service).

More information on the day and about future Leading Edge Day conferences is available on our CPD website.

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