The training imperative

The changes taking place within the Sheffield service from 1970 onwards, away from child guidance towards a broadly based application of psychology within the whole education department, not just schools, raised questions about training psychologists to take up this new role. Since the publication of the Summerfield report in 1968 (DES, 1968), there was pressure to increase initial training places by opening up new courses rather than simply expand places on existing courses. Sheffield University had an excellent Department of Psychology as well as a strong School of Education. David Loxley was a graduate from the Psychology department in Sheffield University, and was keen to support the development of such a course. The first course tutor to be appointed to the course was David Thompson, already working as a Senior EP in Sheffield. Later associate tutors working part-time in the Sheffield Service and part-time on the Sheffield University training course cemented the close relationship, and had a profound influence on the course structure and content. By the 1990s pressures for structured continuing professional development (CPD) for serving psychologists was growing, both through the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS) for chartered psychologists and through the rapid changes in education (national curriculum and its associated assessment procedures, introduction of the Code of Practice for SEN). The tutors on the Sheffield MSc course saw opportunities to develop a taught doctorate to meet these needs, with the first students accepted onto this new doctorate programme in 1996 The experience of developing and teaching this new programme was valuable when initial training for EPs moved to a three-year doctoral course. David Thompson remained as course tutor from 1974 until his retirement in 2007. He reflects on his long experience in the field of initial training and continuing professional development in the field of EP training in the following chapter.