shinel@psychologyforchange.co.uk
Applying Psychology to Implement Change in Education
What change do you want to see?
Our purpose and aims
Our work identifies a central and frequently neglected obstacle to implementing change, known in the literature as the transfer problem. This refers to well-meaning initiatives that fail to make an impact in an organisation because the knowledge and skills required don’t transfer into action.
Our purpose is to challenge traditional ways of attempting change within organisations, which often do not lead to the intended outcomes. We draw upon a range of change and implementation research from organisational and other psychology disciplines including implementation science, implementation practice and training transfer, to illuminate the complex processes involved when planning change.
We support others by using a consultation process together with an 'implementation framework'. This enables school and college staff and other educational professionals, including educational psychologists, to work together to help support implementation planning and lasting change.
Our aim is to help bridge the gap between the research, theory and knowledge by providing educational practitioners practical, accessible and alternative ways to promote real change within schools and colleges. The need for reform in how educational professionals and researchers work to help improve outcomes for children and young people is never more pressing.
Some context to our work is detailed in the following article, should you or colleagues want to find out more:
Chidley, S., & Stringer, P. (2020). Addressing barriers to implementation: an Implementation Framework to help educational psychologists plan work with schools. Educational Psychology in Practice, 36(4), 443–457. https://doi.org/10.1080/02667363.2020.1838448
'Using Psychology to Support Change in Education: A Toolkit for Successful Implementation’ © Shinel Chidley and Phil Stringer, 2027, Routledge (in progress).
ABOUT:
Dr Shinel Chidley
Shinel has worked in a range of educational settings for more than 18 years. She has a Doctorate in Educational, Child and Community Psychology from the University of Exeter, and a PGCE and BSc (Hons) Psychology from the University of Plymouth. She has worked as an EP with local authorities since 2013.
Shinel is passionate about applying implementation to all aspects of an EP’s role to facilitate meaningful and lasting change. Her interests include person centred approaches, play, mediated learning experiences, and implementation.
She is the first author of an article in Educational Psychology in Practice (EPiP, 2020) and the creator of the ‘Implementation Framework’, which is introduced in the article. She has previously presented on this topic for the Association of Educational Psychologists.
As well as being a local authority EP, Shinel has her own private practice where she works in a range of school settings and pursues her professional passions and supports others within the profession to implement change. As part of this, she has presented to and provided implementation support for EPs working for local authorities and in private practice, to initial EP doctoral training programmes, and to other professionals working in the education sector (e.g. staff in the virtual school) on LA wide change initiatives.
Support for Educational Psychologists
& Services
Thank you for showing interest in our work around promoting implementation and change within practice.
There is growing interest from educational psychology services, EP doctoral training programmes and also from other services in this area. The need to understand and apply implementation principles is a key priority within the educational psychology profession.
It is increasingly recognised that implementation support is crucial for helping to maximise the impact we can have for children and young people.
Educational Psychology Services
Supporting whole service change, enabling EPs to provide implementation support as part of their role.
EP Doctoral Training Programmes
Applying implementation research to practice is central to the training and development of trainee educational psychologists.
Other Professional Services
Providing implementation support to other professionals e.g. those working as part of mental health support teams (MHST), virtual schools etc.
Contact:
E-mail: shinel@psychologyforchange.co.uk