The prognosis for children with early-onset conduct disorder is poor. Conduct disorder also has a social cost for families and communities, and an economic cost for society through the increased use of health, education, social, legal and detention services. In this study, the Incredible Years (IY) BASIC programme was delivered to parents of…

Promoting mental health and well-being for children and young people in the UK has attracted increasing prominence in recent years and has been a focus for government strategy within health and education. Training and practice in educational psychology has increasingly focused on developing skills and expertise to provide therapeutic support…

Background: Little is known about the work-related well-being of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) therapists who work in school-based contexts and deliver ABA interventions to children with autism. Methods: A questionnaire on work-related stress (burnout), general distress, perceived supervisor support and coping was completed by 45 ABA therapists…

The use of systems of rewards and sanctions within behaviour policies has now been adopted formally in UK schools. Such systems potentially represent competing theoretical ideas when considered alongside current approaches to teaching and learning. There is also opportunity for inconsistent use of rewards and sanctions resulting from the absence…

Following changes to educational psychology training, the research aimed to examine whether the new training is considered "fit for purpose", using a mixed-methods design. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected via semi-structured online questionnaires completed by recently qualified educational psychologists (RQEPs) who…

Using the psychological framework of rational-emotive behaviour therapy, the principal aim of this study was to establish whether irrational beliefs, self-efficacy or pupil behaviour predicted teacher reports of stress. A secondary aim was to establish whether these variables, in addition to teachers' verbal feedback to pupils in class, predicted…

This action research project considered whether significant improvements in child and young person behavioural and emotional mental health could be achieved using school-based play workers as opposed to qualified therapists. This was seen as being an important practice question as access to qualified play therapists was severely restricted with…

This paper explores how educational psychologists working in a training/consultative way can enable teachers to manage challenging pupil behaviour more effectively. It sets out a rationale which encourages schools to embrace a group based teacher peer-support system as part of regular school development. It then explores the usefulness of the…

This paper reports a school-based study of peer perceptions of a range of behaviours associated with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. A Year 7 (aged 11-12) cohort of pupils were administered a pre-questionnaire in their first term. During the second term the cohorts were split into two; one group received a normally taught unit…

In this article, Tina Axup, an educational psychologist working in Southend-on-Sea, and Irvine Gersch, director of educational and child psychology programmes at the University of East London, describe a small-scale study of teachers' attitudes regarding the impact of student behaviour on their professional lives. Anecdotal evidence within a local…

Reports on the results of a survey designed to explore the views of educational psychologists about their use of behavior modification with clients. Summarizes the responses of a random sample of educational psychologists practicing in the United Kingdom. Finds that most respondents do not implement behavior modification in the traditional manner.…

The positive impact that nurture groups can offer is well documented. This study aims to describe the evaluation of a nurture group intervention across six schools. In contrast to previous research, children accessed the group for a maximum of four mornings per week. The findings show that this model did not comprise the gains reported in previous…

This paper describes an extended action research project run in a large secondary school over an 18-month period. The work was part of a wider strategy for change within the school. The data presented here describes some of the features of the change process and reflections on its impact. A key aim was to challenge and enable teachers to modify…