Training and consultation for psychologists

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Emma is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. She qualified in 2012 from the University of Oxford and worked in the NHS in learning disability services, eventually becoming the clinical and professional lead for psychology in her Trust's learning disability directorate. As a result, Emma has a particular interest in assessing people with learning disabilities - both in establishing whether they have a learning disability, and also in conducting assessments of autism and ADHD in people with a learning disability, which adds a layer of complexity to the formulation. 

During her NHS roles, Emma developed a professional interest in neurodivergence and was the autism lead for her directorate. Emma set up her own private practice in 2017, offering adult assessments for autism, learning disabilities, and later ADHD. Emma continues to run her adult practice, but has also been working as an associate since 2020, for a children's assessment service. Emma's primary role as an associate has been to administer cognitive assessments to children undergoing assessments for autism, ADHD, or both. More recently, she has also been leading on children's ADHD assessments and conducting EHCP clinical psychology assessments.

Emma recently contributed to the development of updated BPS guidelines for assessment and diagnosis of learning disabilities, which will be published soon.

Over the course of her career, Emma estimates that she has conducted over 300 cognitive assessments, predominantly the WISC-V and WAIS-IV.

Katherine is a Child & Adolescent Clinical Psychologist. She qualified in 2005 from the University of Oxford, and worked across different NHS services (including general CAMHS and the CAMHS-crisis service), plus within Oxford Social Care, before moving into private practice. Katherine has used different cognitive assessments extensively across her career, including as the Programme Lead to help assess, formulate and run individualised 24:7 care programmes for Looked After children who had significant emotional and behavioural difficulties. Plus conducting cognitive assessments to establish whether referred young people have a learning disability, and to help schools identify areas of educational need in their students. Over the last few years, Katherine has also worked as part of different multi-disciplinary teams, using cognitive assessments as part of the wider diagnostic assessment process, to determine whether young people meet criteria for autism and/or ADHD. 

One of Katherine’s main areas of interest is Compassionate Focused Therapy, and this approach complements cognitive assessment work in multiple ways, such as engaging the referred young person, interpreting clinical observations made during the assessment, and considering the most helpful recommendations afterwards. Katherine is proficient in multiple cognitive assessments, including the WPPSI-IV, WISC-V and WAIS-IV (both iPad and paper versions); alongside adaptive functional assessments. 

Katherine is also co-author of the following books:

The Compassionate Parenting Workbook and

Brighter Futures: A Guide to Raising Happy, Confident Children in the Primary School Years