Online Consultations

This option is appropriate when you as parent want to discuss concerns you may have about your child/young person and to help with immediate understanding and/or strategies or to signpost you to the most appropriate next step.

Other options:

  • If the child/young person is willing, the session can also be with the child/younger person.
  • The session can also be with school, with a school staff member discussing the child/young person anonymously.
  • Alternatively, the session can be organised with both school and parents together, or parents and child/young person together.

It is mostly considered as a one-off session with a review, (2 hours with each session lasting 1 hour), but a few sessions can be helpful  in order to work on ongoing concerns.

The process uses principles of consultation practice as devised by Patsy Wagner, solution focussed brief therapeutic practices, also Personal Construct psychology amongst other techniques.

Principles of Practice for Consultation

  1. Consultation is collaborative
    • The consultee (e.g. teacher, SENCo, parent, student) is an active partner, not a passive recipient.
    • Knowledge is co-constructed.
  2. The consultee retains ownership
    • Responsibility for decisions and implementation remains with the consultee.
    • The psychologist facilitates thinking.
  3. Focus on capacity-building
    • The aim is to develop the consultee’s skills, confidence, and reflective capacity.
    • Success is measured by long-term impact, not just short-term problem resolution.
  4. Psychological formulation, not advice-giving
    • Consultation centres on shared formulation:
      • understanding the child/system
      • identifying maintaining factors
      • exploring hypotheses together
    • Advice only emerges after understanding.
  5. Respect for context and systems
    • Behaviour and learning are understood within systems (classroom, school, family).
    • Interventions must be contextually realistic and sustainable.
  6. Use of psychological theory and evidence
    • Practice is grounded in:
      • developmental psychology
      • learning theory
      • cognitive, systemic, and socio-emotional frameworks
    • Theory is translated into accessible, practical thinking tools.
  7. Ethical and empowering stance
    • Emphasis on:
      • respect
      • non-judgement
      • strengths-based thinking
    • Avoids deficit-focused or expert-dominated models.
  8. Reflective dialogue
    • Skilled use of:
      • open questions
      • clarification
      • summarising
      • hypothesis-testing
    • The process itself is a thinking intervention.
  9. Clear structure with flexibility
    • Consultation follows a structure (e.g. concern → exploration → formulation → planning)
    • But remains responsive to the consultee’s needs and pace.
  10. Evaluation and review
    • Agreed actions are reviewed collaboratively.
    • Learning from outcomes (successful or not) feeds back into practice.

 

Further Services Available

Caro Strover-Green & Associates work across all age ranges, from infant to adult learning working directly with individuals, schools and professional bodies.

Please select the category relating to the age range in which you are wanting assistance.

Early Years | Ages 2-6

Primary School | Ages 5-11

Secondary School | Ages 11-18

Schools | Professional Bodies

Adult Learning | Ages 18+

Educational Therapy

Training & Mentoring

ELSA

About Caro & Her Team