| Summary: | Children who are adopted can experience significant developmental delays which are noticeable for years after their adoption. A particularly prominent area of delay is in the arena of emotional and social development, most notably emotional regulation (ER).The central focus of this thesis asks to what extent the increasingly advocated, theoretical and practice framework of consultation can effectively support the development of those young people's emotional regulation skills following early trauma impact. The aim is not to draw general conclusions about adopted young people, but to provide a source of rich descriptions about this specific group of young people, their parents and school staffs' experiences of consultative Educational Psychology (EP) involvement and identify implications for EP practice, particularly in relation to ER change. This is following Government agendas (e.g. Every Child Matters), as well as the Educational Psychology (EP) profession itself, discourses regarding the perceived value and effectiveness of EPs, and the scope of their work. In order to explore this issue a concurrent mixed methods, qualitative-led, multiple case study design was adopted. Four young people (aged between 10 and 14 years old) were the focus of individual single case studies. Young people, their parents and school staff completed a number of specific questionnaires pre-and post- consultative Educational Psychology intervention (relating to executive functioning and emotional regulation), as well as weekly Likert scales in order to build a detailed picture over time. Parents and teachers were subsequently interviewed to elicit their experiences and perceptions of the overall consultation process and specific consultation meeting. Data was gathered on their reflections of whether changes had taken place, and if so, their reasoning as to . what contributed to making that difference.
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