The key to consistency: Cumberland Council’s journey with the Quality EP Advice Tool

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‘Our Educational Psychologist team found Invision360’s tool affirming and positive. We can easily moderate our advice and reflect on our practices’

Cumberland’s improvement journey with the Quality EP Advice Tool

Creating consistent Educational Psychologist (EP) advice reports is a common challenge for EP teams. Utilising expert software can help your EP team improve the quality of service, streamline processes and demonstrate areas of good practice .  

‘It has helped our reflective conversations when writing statutory advice and supported achievement of consistency across the team’

We spoke to Dr Heather Swain and Dr Debra Brewer, the Acting Principal Educational Psychologists for Cumberland Council, to hear how Invision360’s QEPA Tool has empowered their EP service.

In a rush? Here’s the best bits

• Cumberland began using the Quality EP Advice Tool in February 2024 (just five months ago)
• It has given them a systematic tool to audit and monitor EP advice for EHCPs
• The council has consistency for all EP staff (including locum and agency staff members)
• They use easy-to-digest graphs to see and understand their strengths and areas of development relating to statutory advice
• The EP team have found the use of the software affirming

The Educational Psychologist Advice Tool

So, what is the EP Advice Tool? The tool was created by EP professionals, for EP professionals. It is one of many EHCP-driven tools SEND teams use to ensure their EHC assessments are high-quality and aligned with national SEND standards.

• Remote access
• Impartial recognised SEND standards to assess EPAdvice quality
• Ranked Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum for advice quality
• Highlights areas requiring improvement to meet national standards  
• Gives a consistent, objective process that can be used by permanent and agency staff 

Want to access all the features the EP Advice Tool has to offer? Book in a free demo.

The background of Cumberland’s Educational Psychology team

The Educational Psychology team in Cumberland Council consists of 7 permanent EPs, 1 trainee EP and 2 Behaviour and EmotionalWellbeing Officers. Cumberland also has 1 Locum EP that supports for 2 days per week.

Dr Heather Swain and Dr Debra Brewer gave us valuable insight into how their EP service is managed, highlighting how Invision360’s EP Advice Tool has helped streamline their processes.

Cumberland Council’s previous EP Advice management process

The previous process the team used centred around reflective discussions as part of peer and individual support sessions.

‘We had no systematic tool to ensure we’d covered everything’. 

The team would discuss what they felt made for good quality EHNCA advice. They would put in the time to ensure each report would include a range of information and specific data.

Invision360's EP Advice tool utilises a user-friendly, step-by-step process, with a standardised quality assurance framework that can be easily adopted and accessed remotely by any EPS, taking one thing to remember off your already busy plate.

Let’s look at the impact the EP Advice Tool has had on

• Process
• The EP Team
• Monitoring capacity

The positive impact on the EP Advice process

• Nothing left to chance or interpretation
• Highlights areas for staff CPD
• Gives consistency for locum and agency staff

'Using Invision360, through collaborative conversations, the Cumberland EP team can now highlight areas of strengths and areas we might wish to reflect on and develop. We can link this to CPD for individuals and team members.’

The Educational Psychology service is in high demand and shows no signs of slowing down. The challenges linked to EP recruitment mean the use of agency or locum EPs in council EP services is commonplace. Cumberland Council maintains their high standards of advice by ensuring the process is consistent, even with agile EPs.

Team feedback on the QEPA Tool

‘As we are overworked and short-staffed, like a lot of councils, the minute somebody mentions quality assurance, individuals might be concerned they will feel judged. Our team have found it affirming. To get the Gold or Platinum standard and see the visual graphs in support is a real boost.’

Invision360 EP advice audit tool:

• Highlights areas of strength
• Gives EP service a benchmark against others nationally
• Positive evidence for council senior leaders

The Invision360 EP Advice audit tool (QEPA) Tool helps to boost good practice and celebrates the power behind an impartial, specialised system recognising a report as Platinum or Gold.

Monitoring the EP Advice process

With the use of the EP Advice Tool, Heather, Debra and their team have a formalised system for auditing their advice. All EP Advice reports in the auditing pipeline can be tracked and themes can emerge.

The impartial system gives Cumberland’s EP team the confidence to highlight areas of development. It can also be useful when setting performance management targets, removing any bias and using black and white data to inform action plans for staff development.

A key part of the EP Advice Tool has been the reporting feature which has allowed for reflection on the strengths, needs, outcomes and advice written by the team.
 

‘We have become more mindful of the nuts and bolts of our reports, especially with making the acronyms we use every day more accessible to non-specialists.’

 
Would you recommend the tool to other EP teams?

‘We have certainly found it helpful as an external and nationally recognised tool for reflecting on our advice so we can improve the quality and usefulness of our reports’.

What’s next?

If your council or local authority is ready to bring consistency to quality assuring the statutory Educational Psychology advice that informs children's EHCN assessments, contact one of our helpful team today to get started with your free demo.

Author

Philip Stock, CEO and Founder of Invision360, brings extensive experience and a personal commitment to SEND.Formerly a Principal Educational Psychologist and Head of SEND and InclusionServices in a large London Borough. Philip witnessed the challenges in SEND quality assurance first-hand, and was driven to improve outcomes for children and young people. In 2021, he founded Invision360, acknowledging technology asa key solution. Under his leadership, Invision360 develops innovative tools that enhance local authority efficiency, quality and consistency, ensuring better outcomes for children and young people with SEND.

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