Welcome to our podcast, Conversations about Consultation. This is a series of digital audio files, made with a wide range of guests who have been generous enough to share their thinking on the topic of consultation in education. Our aim is to provide thought-provoking and engaging content that you can access at times and in places convenient to you, growing out of our shared interest in consultation.

Emma is the course director of the M4 doctoral training in educational psychology at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She also leads the Y1 module on Consultation and is part of the International School Psychology Association (ISPA) - consultation task force.

Jessica, Emily, Bethanie and Zahra are all current or graduated doctoral students from the Tavistock and Portman M4 training. Our current co-hosts Bethanie and Zahra currently work in or are on placement in local authority settings making use of consultation in their work.

Consultation has any number of different definitions and models. Given our training and background, we are especially interested in consultation as it is used in schools and community settings. We see consultation as a particular type of professional helping relationship, one that holds central the idea that it is the relationship between the consultant and those with whom they work that makes the difference. However, one aim of Conversations about Consultation is to speak with guests who perhaps use different lenses, modalities and approaches and who offer something unique and distinctive that can complement or contrast with our own. It may be a current trainee on a different programme whose research interests include consultation, or an early career practitioner reflecting on consultative working in schools. We speak with experienced practitioners from other disciplines who bring their expertise in working with children young people and their families; as well as psychologists who have been working in the field of consultation research and practice for many years. We hope you will find a conversation to listen to that engages your interest, offers a different perspective or even just provokes a new question or idea that leads to further conversations of your own.

You can follow us on BlueSky to join in the conversation at @CACpodcast.bsky.social