Educational Psychologist

About the role

Soulbury Salary Scale A4-9 (plus up to 3 SPA discretionary points, existing SPAs will be honoured).

Location:

Various. We are pleased to offer flexibility regarding the locality of this role, subject to the needs of the service. Hybrid working arrangements are also available, enabling a balance between office-based and remote working where appropriate.

Are you an Educational Psychologist who is passionate about inclusion, early intervention and making a lasting difference to children and young people with SEND?

Are you excited by the opportunity to shape innovative services, influence system‑wide change and work collaboratively with schools, families and partners to improve outcomes?

Join Dorset's Educational Psychology Service and play a leading role in delivering our pioneering Dorset’s Expertise Offer (Experts at Hand). Working within a highly supportive and forward‑thinking team, you’ll help strengthen inclusive practice across mainstream education, ensuring expert advice and support is available earlier, closer to where children learn and when it matters most. You’ll have the opportunity to work collaboratively with colleagues across education, health and care, contribute to Dorset’s ambitious SEND Reform programme, and help shape the future of support for children, young people and families across the county.

• Shape the future of SEND support through Dorset's innovative Experts at Hand programme.
• Influence system‑wide change and strengthen inclusive practice across schools and settings.
• Work as part of a multidisciplinary team
  , collaborating with education, health and SEND professionals.
• Make a meaningful impact
  , helping children and young people access support earlier and thrive in their local communities.
• Be part of an ambitious transformation programme that is nationally aligned and locally driven.
• Join a service that values innovation, professional growth and collaboration.

‘Dorset Children Thrive’ is our locality model to deliver Children’s Services. It brings together services and support for children and families into four integrated locality teams. The locality teams include Family Help, Children's Social Care and Learning and Belonging. Through our integrated structure colleagues work in multi‑disciplinary integrated teams, educational psychologists are part of the Learning and Belonging strand.

Dorset Council Educational Psychologists are creative, person‑centred and have excellent relationships with families, children and young people, education settings, social care and health colleagues as well as with each other.

Our team values are Relationships, Hope, Diversity, Curiosity and Creativity.

• Child and young person centred.
• Passionate about supporting the inclusion of children and young people to improve belonging and engagement.
• Seeking opportunities to apply psychology as a leader and to influence strategic plans.
• Committed to supporting the development of EPs and other colleagues.
• Committed to the development of their own practice and that of colleagues using reflective supervision.
• Creative, flexible, positive and focused on solutions.
• Able to demonstrate effective work within a multi‑disciplinary team.
• Able to develop positive working relationships with a range of colleagues.
• Pro‑active in developing and sharing your knowledge and skills.

An enhanced DBS for adults and children is a requirement of the post.

Join us and help build a more inclusive education system where every child can belong, thrive and achieve.

We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. If you declare a disability and meet the essential criteria for the role, we will offer you an interview. We also want our recruitment process to be accessible; if you need any reasonable adjustments, please let us know on your application.

This role is UK‑based, and we will need to confirm your Right to Work as part of the appointment process. We use generic job descriptions and person specifications, so the job title in any attachments may differ from the advert. If needed, we will provide additional details in a context statement.

For further information or to discuss the post informally, please contact Clare Anderson, Principal Educational Psychologist, at clare.a or