Careers in educational psychology

We are looking for skilled and creative professionals to join our educational psychology team.

About us

We are an incredibly friendly and supportive team of 33 educational psychologists (EPs) who work well together to support schools and settings, children, young people and families throughout West Sussex. In addition to our 33 EPs, we currently have two assistant psychologists and will have two trainees on placements with us in 2022/23.

There are four area teams - two based in Worthing and two in Horsham.

The EPS is an integral part of the West Sussex SEND and Inclusion service and supports the delivery of the Local Authority’s wellbeing strategy and Special Educational Needs and Disability strategy across educational settings, children, young people and families throughout West Sussex. The EPS directly oversees the Portage Service and the Mental Health Support Teams in schools, with Education Psychologists playing an important role in both.

We have a growing chargeable service focussed on wellbeing which enables us to offer a range of evidence-based support to schools and other settings. This includes person-centred approaches, group supervision, consultation and training.

We have a well-developed Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) programme and lead on the county wide Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA) support. In addition, EPs contribute to other services such as our Virtual School, adoption and fostering teams, a specialist CAMHS service and play an important role in our Mental Health Support Teams in Schools.

Why work for us

Pay

We pay on the Soulbury Educational Psychologist scale. Our salary scale for main grade EPs is Soulbury Scale A 2-7, which is currently equivalent to £40,838 - £50,584, plus up to 3 Structured Professional Assessment points.

Benefits

Educational psychologist's benefits

Annual leave of up to 31 days, plus the ability to buy additional annual leave.
Excellent local government pension scheme.
Flexible and mobile working opportunities supported by our technology, which allow our educational psychologists to optimise work schedules and encourage a healthy work/life balance. Many of our team work reduced or compressed hours to support their commitments outside of work.
Excellent learning and development opportunities.
Continuous professional development, peer support and supervision is much valued within the service and we ensure EPs have an opportunity to develop their areas of interest, leadership and strategic skills.
We place the wellbeing of our team at the centre of all we do with supportive induction packages, peer supervision and regular wellbeing sessions.
Fantastic support for you and your family, including childcare vouchers, career breaks and access to health and financial wellbeing schemes and benefits.
Access to a wide range of discounts in areas such as:
- groceries
- travel
- cinema tickets
- days out
- leisure activities
- high street retailers
- the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform.
A range of commuting and business travel discounts and initiatives.
Where applicable, a generous relocation package.

Find out why West Sussex is a great place to live and work

Learning and development

We use team time to listen to and share with one another, and to learn to support our work as applied psychologists.

We have three full service days per year to further support this. Two of these annual days are organised and planned by area educational psychologist (EPs) teams to reflect relevant areas of interest and development within the teams.

Recent team days have involved external speakers in the areas of race and culture and bereavement support.

The third annual day is organised and presented by the EPs Senior Management Team to focus upon service and local authority developments.

What to expect

Our educational psychology (EP) teams are based in Horsham and Worthing. Each area team is managed by a senior educational psychologist and all team members receive regular supervision, as well as peer supervision.
You will be given a laptop, iPad and/or smart phone giving you access to your emails/calendar when you’re away from the office.
There will be a full induction package to familiarise yourself with the service and county.
You will undertake planned meetings with a number of schools and educational settings, for which you will be the main contact.
Statutory work is allocated through area team meetings ensuring equity in workload.
Within the team there are opportunities to undertake a variety of other work, including supervision of portage home visitors and work with other local authority teams, such as the Virtual School for Children Looked After, the Fostering and Adoption Service and Mental Health Support Teams in Schools.

Current vacancies

View and apply for job vacancies

We are always interested to hear from experienced EPs, including those who are looking to relocate and those interested in locum work.
We are keen to hear from trainee educational psychologists towards the end of their second year or final year of training.
We are proud of the service that we provide to children, young people and their families in West Sussex. We are always happy to have phone or email conversations about the work we do and the vacancies we have, as well as welcoming visits to our service.