Educational Psychologist

Market Forces premium of £4,000 per annum.

Relocation allowance of up to £8000

Employee benefits include essential car user allowance, mileage and an employee discount scheme

Job Status: Full time posts (37 hrs per week) and part time posts

Medway is a flexible employer who encourages conversations about ways of working to benefit you.

We have the fantastic opportunity to develop our service reach through the appointment of main grade psychologists. Please read on if you are curious about the difference you could make to our team, please do get in touch to begin the conversation.

You will be joining a supportive and collaborative team with a range of experiences and interests. We are enthusiastic about applying psychology, valuing practice-based and evidence-based approaches. Several members of the team are accredited VIG practitioners and others hold qualifications in CBT, therapeutic play, narrative therapy and DBT. We are passionate about inclusion and value working at systems level through training and research and directly with children, young people and their families.

You will benefit from a generous offer of regular supervision, through line management and peer approaches. We have an enhanced supervision offer for recently qualified EPs, alongside adjustments in workload and support for tribunal related work during the first year of qualified practice. We have an established cycle of service development and a commitment to CPD. Recent service CPD has included: use of AI, DBT, executive functioning, literacy, and emotionally based school avoidance. EPs are actively encouraged to contribute to the progression of the service and supported to obtain SPA points. We have an approach to work allocation that strives for equitable distribution, and a realistic workload, working with individual strengths and interests where at all possible, and creating opportunities for co-working. We have good working relationships with partner teams, for example providing psychological services and project work to our Virtual School and Emotional Wellbeing teams.

We have good links with Doctoral Training Programmes in the region, supporting the Doctorate selection process, thesis examinations, University training sessions, and we host placements for Trainee Educational Psychologists. We value the contribution trainees make to our service and harness the innovation those placements bring.

We have a good reputation with our local schools and consistently receive positive feedback about our work and the impact of it. We have had a thriving traded service and provided a termly consultation service to every state funded school through a link psychologist. Like many LA services, this year we have had to reduce this offer to focus on an increase in statutory assessment requests. Our annual service review data indicates that schools have missed their opportunities to engage us in preventive work and are keen for us to re-establish this. We have successfully contributed to the PINS initiative, developed local area wide practice on the topic of EBSA and successfully delivered training packages for ELSA and MeLSA and on topics such as precision teaching and executive functioning.

Our service currently benefits from the combined experiences and expertise of Assistant, trainee, main grade, specialist senior and senior educational psychologists. Although the service has a senior leadership team, our ethos and practice are one where all EPs are considered leaders. This means we harness the energy and experience of all team members in developing and delivering the best possible service, with opportunities for colleagues to lead on different topics or service developments. Priorities for us are to develop our antiracist practice, safe and informed use of Artificial Intelligence, and to begin to deliver Autism Education Trust neuro-affirming professional development opportunities. Successful applicants would have opportunities to shape and innovate on these work streams by having dedicated time to be part of these working groups.

Medway is a unitary authority easily accessible from London and the Southeast of England. The Channel ports are just 40 minutes’ drive in neighbouring Kent and London St Pancras is 40 minutes by high-speed train from historic Rochester. Our EPS serves the diverse community in and around Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham, Rochester and Strood.

We work centrally from the Medway Council Offices at Gun Wharf in Chatham, where there is free on-site parking, from home and other locations. We have excellent dedicated administrative support.

We welcome applications from those currently on the Doctorate training programme as well those who are already qualified as EPs and seeking fresh opportunities. We want to represent the communities we serve, and we welcome applications from underrepresented groups. We are an outward looking service, engaging at regional and national level. This is an exciting time to come and join us.

We are committed to safer recruitment and safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. Offers of appointment will be subject to an Enhanced Disclosure application to the Disclosure and Barring Service and registration with the Health and Care Professionals Council.

Please call Fiona Alexander, Principal Educational Psychologist or Sophie Curra, Senior Educational Psychologist on 01634 335647

Interviews will be held on 4th September 2025