Association of Educational Psychologists

Promoting the concerns and expertise of educational psychologist members to Parliament to influence policymaking.

Background

The Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP) is the trade union and professional body for educational psychologists in the UK. Its remit is to support the rights and effective working practices of its members, to promote the educational psychology profession, to promote best practice, to ensure the wellbeing of children and young people and to highlight any concerns regarding these issues.

Our strategy and outcomes

Whitehouse was appointed to promote the educational psychology profession and the AEP’s concerns on behalf of its members and children and young people. Whitehouse developed and implemented an extensive integrated communications programme, which has resulted in the AEP now regularly being called upon by government and parliamentarians to support the policy making process, with engagement on the Children and Families Act ensuring the inclusion of a provision for educational psychologists to have a statutory role in providing advice to local authorities during the statutory assessment process, effectively guaranteeing the future of the educational psychology workforce.

Whitehouse’s work also helped prevent the closure of an educational psychology training course in Wales, with the Welsh government committing to a long-term review of the workforce. The AEP is now regularly in the national and specialist educational media, securing a front page stories in the Daily Telegraph regarding the AEP’s concerns over ADHD medications and regular commentary in trade media such as Children & Young People Now, the Times Educational Supplement and SEN Magazine.

We receive regular feedback from our members telling us how much they value the work which the Whitehouse team has done on behalf of the AEP, particularly in helping to strengthen the dialogue between the profession and politicians and media contacts at a national level, but also to keep members up to date with national developments across the UK. The current status of the profession has been significantly enhanced by the joint work carried out by the AEP and Whitehouse teams.