Conversations about Consultation Emma Ní Chinnéide, Zahra Ahmed, Jessica Rowley & Emily Crosby

Dr Anwen Marshall graduated as an Educational Psychologist from Bristol University in 2021. She currently works in Bristol City Council where she also holds the role of ‘person-centred champion’. She supports person-centred work in her service and with colleagues. Before training as an Educational Psychologist (EP), Anwen worked as an Assistant EP in London for two-years, based in a primary school.
For her doctoral research, Anwen explored EPs’ views on children and young peoples participation in consultation meetings. This involved of two phases of data collection, phase one was an online questionnaire and phase two consisted of appreciative informed semi-structured interviews with EPs.
Her research found a difference between beliefs and current practice, where trainee EPs/EPs generally believed in the benefits of participation, but EP practice often not mirroring this. Attitudes, facilitators and barriers were explored and Anwen very generously shared some of these on todays episode. Anwen also share elements from the model for participation she created as a product of her research. The model considers both systemic strategies and practical meeting strategies. We were really privileged to speak with Anwen about her research and hope this promotes reflection on our practice.

We were so privileged to speak with Laleh Laverick in this episode about such a range of important factors influencing schools at the moment. Laleh speaks from a wealth of expertise and experience from her role as a Leadership and Management Adviser at Hackney Education as well as the various roles she has held in inner city primary schools for over 20 years.

Prior to joining Hackney Education, Laleh served as an Executive Headteacher of 6 inner city schools. She was also an NLE linked to a Teaching School and as part of her work, she supported ‘Women Leading in Education’ and ‘BAME leadership’ programmes. Before becoming an Executive Headteacher, she worked in range of roles many of them in the field of inclusion and curriculum development. She has also served as a school governor. Laleh has published articles in the Chartered College of Teaching’s journal and in journals on Early Years Education. In recent years, she has supported school leaders through management and system changes. Laleh believes that schools are at their best when their vision and ethos are clearly communicated by school leaders to all stakeholders and the culture of schools is one of high ambition for their communities. 

We loved speaking with Laleh about so much of her experiences working in various roles in UK schools. We reflect on the current factors influencing schools in London and SEN departments generally, as well as the important role of understanding varying professional cultures when contracting and collaborating. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and we look forward to reading some of your reflections about the topics discussed!

Today we are so privileged to have with us Dr Lauren Kaiser, PhD, NCSP is a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP). Currently, Dr. Kaiser is an Associate Professor and Program Coordinator for the School Psychology Graduate Program in the Psychology Department at Millersville University near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the United States.
She received her Bachelors degree in Elementary Education, and earned her Masters and Doctoral degrees in School Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to her faculty assignment, Dr. Kaiser worked in a variety of professional capacities within urban, suburban, and rural schools over the past 20-years, across eight states in the U.S. She served as an elementary school teacher; school psychologist; and a trainer, consultant or coach of Instructional Consultation Teams and the Double Check and Bullying Classroom Check-Up programs. Her teaching and research interests are school consultation, teacher coaching, consultation training, and implementation science to help promote safe, supportive, equitable, and instructionally matched school environments for all students. Dr. Kaiser serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation.
She co-facilitates the NASP Consultee Centered Consultation Interest Group with Dr. Danny Newman. Dr. Kaiser and Dr. Newman were recently invited to co-author Best Practices in Instructional Consultation in the NASP Best Practices 7 series. They have worked together on several projects investigating the use and effects of deliberate practice training on the development of consultant communication micro-skills and consultation efficacy, which have resulted in peer-reviewed manuscripts and conference presentations. Dr. Kaiser’s initial consultation research focused upon the acceptability and effects of the Instructional Consultation and Instructional Consultation Teams model. Presently, Dr. Kaiser also serves as a consultant on large-scale training grants investigating the training and efficacy of the Double Check Classroom-Check-Up Model, a teacher coaching model which focuses upon enhancing culturally responsive teaching and student engagement. She has co-authored a chapter on innovations in coaching for the Handbook of School Mental Health: Issues in Clinical Child Psychology, as well as co-presented in invited national conference panels on the topic of school coaching to enhance equity in school discipline.
We spoke with Lauren about her research into teacher satisfaction, seeking feedback, training novice consultants and ongoing learning and supervision of consultation. We hope you enjoy listening and reflecting on this episode!

We are so lucky to have spoken with Dr Catherine Kelly and Dr Esther Kambe Kuria about their recent publication on social justice in Educational Psychology in Practice. Catherine is an Assistant Director for the Doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology at the University of Manchester and an Educational Psychology for Bury Metropolitan Borough Council. Esther graduated from the Doctorate in Educational and Child Psychology from the University of Manchester and currently works in Cheshire East Local Authority. In this episode, we touch on a range of topics from attunement skills and group consultation to intersectionality and social justice principles within educational psychology services. We loved speaking with Esther and Catherine and have learnt so much from this conversation. We hope you enjoy listening!
Article Reference: Esther K Kuria & Catherine Kelly (2023): Exploring social justice principles within an educational psychology service, Educational Psychology in Practice, DOI: 10.1080/02667363.2023.2226857

Dr. Collier-Meek is a licensed psychologist and Board Certified Behaviour Analyst. She is currently an Associate Professor of School Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also serves as an Associate Editor for School Psychology and provides reviews to several journals, for which she has been twice honoured as reviewer of the year. Mel’s research interests includes implementation science and conducts applied school-based implementation research. She has specific expertise in intervention fidelity and teacher consultation. We loved speaking with Mel about her work on implementation science and refectioning on consultation using a DisCrit lens. We hope you enjoy this episode :)

In this episode we were honoured to speak with Dr Dale Bartle and Dr Xavier Eloquin, two of the three editors of the "Learning from the Unconscious" book which explores Psychoanalytic Approaches in Educational Psychology. We thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Dale and Xavier and we hope that this episode stimulates curiosity and reflections about consultation practice.