Meet the EP team
Dr Jane Park
Co-Principal Educational Psychologist
Dr Jane Park is an Educational Psychologist (Specialist Practitioner) with Telford & Wrekin EPS, having trained with the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust. Her primary area of professional interest is in the field of supporting positive life outcomes for young people in the 14-25 age range with complex needs. Passionate about supervision, Jane is a British Psychological Society (BPS) trained supervisor and has supervised the development of trainee EPs from the University of Birmingham for several years. Jane also co-ordinates our Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) training and supervision in Telford & Wrekin. Jane’s doctoral research was published in the BPS book ‘Applied Educational Psychology With 16-25 Year Olds’ and an academic paper ‘Using the Grid Elaboration Method (GEM) to investigate the transition experiences of young autistic adults’ was published in March 2020. Her chapter contribution to a forthcoming book publication on supporting young autistic adults into further education is due for publication in 2022.
Publications
Dr Alexandra Sewell, Dr Jane Park, Dr Janchai King, and Dr Hannah Fleming, Kara Pirttijarvi, Stuart Busby (2022). Voice Practices to Support Pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND). In Diverse Voices in Education London:JKP. [publication in October 2022]
Charli Franklin & Jane Park (2022) Transition Into Adulthood. In Judith Gainsborough (ed) Educational Psychology Perspectives on Supporting Young Autistic People, GB: JKP
Alexandra Sewell & Jane Park (2021) A three factor model of educational practice considerations for teaching neurodiverse learners from a strengths-based perspective, Support For Learning 36, 4 pp 678-694 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9604.12387
Jane Park & Judith Mortell (2020) Using the Grid Elaboration Method (GEM) to investigate transition experiences of young autistic adults, Educational Psychology in Practice, 36:2, 193-207, DOI: 10.1080/02667363.2020.1731429
Jane Park (2018) From real-world research to the real world: Extending the free association in Grid Elaboration Method into applied educational psychologist practice with older students. In Brian Apter, Christopher Arnold, & Julia Hardy (Eds.), Applied educational psychology with 16-25 year olds: New frameworks and perspectives for working with young people (pp. 135-150). UCL Institute of Education Press.
Dr Meryl Newton
Co-Principal Educational Psychologist
Dr Meryl Newton is an Educational Psychologist with a Specialist Practitioner role in Early Years at Telford and Wrekin EPS. She completed her Educational Psychology doctorate at Cardiff University, having previously completed an MSc in Psychology at the University of East London.
Meryl’s professional interests include pupil voice work (gathering and representing young people’s views), working with children under the age of 5 and supervision. She has enjoyed providing clinical supervision for a range of professionals, including Social Workers, Emotional Literacy Support Assistants, school based wellbeing leads and Trainee Educational Psychologists. She currently supervises the assistant psychologists working for Telford and Wrekin Educational Psychology Service.
Publications
Meryl Newton & Ian Smillie (2020) Educational psychologists’ practice: obtaining and representing young people’s views, Educational Psychology in Practice, 36:3, 328-344, DOI: 10.1080/02667363.2020.1787955
Dr Colette Soan
Educational Psychologist - Specialist Practitioner SEMH
Dr Penny Whittles
Educational Psychologist
I completed the Doctorate in Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology at UCL’s ‘Institute of Education’ in London between 2017 and 2020. During this time, I completed placements with Lambeth Council and Hackney Council. Prior to this, I qualified and worked as a Teacher in Swindon having completed a PGCE from the University of Worcester.
Post qualifying, I returned to my home county of Shropshire and have been working for Telford and Wrekin Council. My work and interests include:
- ASD and delivering AET training.
- Sensory processing and sensory integration.
- Early childhood development.
- Interest in dynamic models as alternatives to psychometric assessment.
Kate Jobson
Trainee Educational Psychologist
I am a second-year trainee Child and Educational Psychologist studying at the University of Birmingham.
I joined the Educational Psychology team in September 2022, and am really enjoying getting to know the young people, families, and education settings across Telford and Wrekin.
Before beginning my training as a Child and Educational Psychologist, I worked as a volunteer counsellor for Childline, and as a PhD researcher specialising in supporting children and young people with literacy difficulties.
I am passionate about working with people to help them achieve meaningful change in their lives, or within the systems that they live and work in. I particularly enjoy taking a person-centred approach in order to understand an individual’s lived experiences and what is really important to them.
Areas of psychology that I am particularly interested in (and love using in my work) include:
- Personal-Construct Psychology (PCP)
- Solution-focused and strengths-based approaches
- Therapeutic approaches
- Joint working and group problem-solving
Assistant Psychologist
