Senior Educational Psychologist

Shape the future of SEND. Lead change that improves lives.

Are you an experienced Educational Psychologist ready to take your expertise further?

At Brent, you’ll have the opportunity to combine high-quality psychological practice with leadership, service development and system-wide influence — helping shape how we support children and young people with SEND across the borough.

As a Senior Educational Psychologist, you’ll work closely with the Principal Educational Psychologist to strengthen the Educational Psychology Service, develop our workforce and help turn national and local SEND priorities into meaningful improvements for children, young people and their families.

This is a role for someone who wants to lead, influence and innovate — while remaining closely connected to the professional practice that makes a difference every day.

The Role

You’ll play a key role in delivering a high-quality, equitable Educational Psychology Service for children and young people aged 0–25, combining strategic thinking with operational leadership and professional expertise.

Working under the direction of the Principal Educational Psychologist, you’ll contribute to statutory service delivery, workforce development and wider SEND system improvement.

You’ll have strategic and operational responsibility for areas of service delivery and will provide supervision, professional support and performance management to Educational Psychologists and Assistant Educational Psychologists.

You’ll also:

• Support the Principal Educational Psychologist in providing professional and operational leadership across the Educational Psychology Service.
• Contribute to the strategic development, delivery and evaluation of the service within the wider SEND system and Children and Young People’s Directorate.
• Help lead the implementation of current and emerging SEND reforms and national policy, including the strategic and operational development of the Experts at Hand offer.
• Support innovation in the planning, deployment and development of Educational Psychology services.
• Contribute to recruitment, retention and deployment of Educational Psychologists to ensure statutory services are delivered within required timescales.
• Support the Local Authority in fulfilling its statutory SEND responsibilities, including statutory assessments, reassessments, annual reviews and transition reviews.
• Provide high-quality, evidence-based psychological advice and reports and contribute to tribunals, mediation and related proceedings where required.
• Provide supervision and professional support, helping colleagues develop their practice and maintain high standards of quality.
• Lead and develop specialist areas of EP practice in response to service and system needs.
• Design, deliver and evaluate training for schools, parents, carers and professionals across education, health and care.
• Strengthen partnership working across statutory and voluntary services.
• Contribute to service-user participation and use feedback and evaluation to improve the impact of the service.
• Contribute to, and where appropriate lead, the EPS response to critical incidents.

You’ll be a senior professional role model within the service — helping to create consistent, reflective and evidence-informed practice while supporting colleagues to deliver the very best outcomes for children and young people.

The Person

We’re looking for an experienced Educational Psychologist who is ready to make an impact beyond their own caseload and take a leading role in shaping practice, people and services.

You’ll have a good honours degree in Psychology recognised by the BPS, together with either a teaching qualification and significant teaching experience plus a Masters in Educational Psychology, or significant experience working with children and young people and a Doctorate in Educational & Child Psychology.

You’ll bring substantial post-qualification experience as an Educational Psychologist, including experience of supervision, service development and leading areas of practice.

You’ll also have:

• In-depth knowledge of SEND legislation, national policy and current developments affecting Educational Psychology services.
• Specialist knowledge of inclusion, child development and applied psychological practice within a local authority context.
• Strong communication, negotiation and influencing skills, with the ability to engage effectively with a wide range of audiences.
• The ability to respond positively to change and develop, implement and evaluate creative approaches that improve outcomes.
• The ability to inspire others and develop common standards and effective working practices.
• Strong partnership-building skills, with the ability to influence and work collaboratively with schools, agencies and service providers.
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to manage competing demands while maintaining high-quality service delivery.
• The ability to provide effective supervision, support and mentoring to Educational Psychologists and Assistant Educational Psychologists.
• Strong leadership and people management skills.
• A commitment to high standards of public service, honesty, integrity and professionalism.
• Experience of supervising main-grade EPs, Assistant EPs or TEPs would be desirable.

Most importantly, you’ll be someone who can combine professional expertise with curiosity, leadership and the confidence to influence change.

Join us. Lead change. Shape better futures.
 

Why join us?