Education Support Services
High quality psychological services that put relationships at the centre.
We are an award-winning team of clinical psychologists specialising in supporting schools, education settings and the multi-agency teams around them, to deliver psychologically responsive care to children, young people, families and communities.
Who we support & how we work
Our work is rooted in collaboration
At CMCAFS we provide high quality, bespoke psychological services to schools, colleges, local authorities and multi-academy trusts at both a regional and national level. We specialise in supporting these systems to embed psychologically responsive relational approaches which aim to strengthen the vital role that these systems play in building resilience, promoting wellbeing and safeguarding children and young people.
We partner with education settings and professionals to strengthen the vital role schools play in promoting wellbeing, building resilience, and safeguarding children and young people.
Services
We offer a wide range of psychological services tailored to the needs of schools and the wider teams and agencies that support them, including:
Training & Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
At CMCAFS, we offer a wide range of high-quality, psychologically informed training and CPD opportunities tailored to the needs of schools and education professionals.
Our Clinical Psychologists deliver bespoke training designed to support education settings in promoting the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Whether you’re looking to build whole-school understanding, deepen specialist knowledge, or strengthen team dynamics, our training is grounded in evidence, shaped by lived experience in education settings, and tailored to your context.
Training can be delivered:
- In-person within your setting
- Online via live virtual sessions
- Or from our purpose-built training space in Warrington
We offer flexible formats, including full-day, half-day, and twilight sessions. Packages can be developed for individual schools or scaled across multiple settings, depending on your needs.
Examples of our training offers include:
- Psychologically Informed Care in Education
- Understanding Attachment and Developmental Trauma
- Making Sense of Behaviour: Practical Strategies for Supporting CYP
- Supporting Emotionally Based School Avoidance (EBSA)
- Responding to Complex Mental Health Needs in CYP
- Psychological Safety and Team Dynamics
- Psychologically Responsive Practice for Children with Additional Needs
If you’re unsure where to start, we’re happy to work with you to co-develop a programme that meets your setting’s goals.
Critical Incident Support to Schools, Local Authorities and Multi-Agency Teams
Critical incidents and traumatic events can have a profound and lasting impact on children, young people, staff, families, and the wider community. How an organisation responds in the immediate and longer-term aftermath is vital in shaping the recovery, resilience, and wellbeing of everyone affected.
Our team of Clinical Psychologists is highly trained and experienced in delivering trauma-responsive, evidence-based psychological support to schools, local authorities, and multi-agency teams following critical incidents. We offer both immediate and ongoing support to help individuals and teams process their experiences and begin to rebuild a sense of safety, connection, and stability.
In addition to responsive support, we work proactively with leadership teams to develop robust, psychologically informed plans ensuring that schools and services are well-prepared to respond to incidents in ways that prioritise wellbeing and support recovery across the whole community.
Psychological Consultation & Clinical Guidance
We provide tailored psychological consultation, supervision and clinical guidance to education professionals and multi-agency teams working with children and young people.
Our consultation sessions offer a reflective space for staff to explore and better understand the psychological needs of children, young people, families and teams they work with (for example where there might be concerns around wellbeing, mental health, safeguarding, behaviour and school engagement).
We work collaboratively to identify key needs, consider wider contextual and relational factors, and develop practical, evidence -based approaches that are most likely to make a difference. Where appropriate, schools are encouraged to involve relevant professionals from across services, such as social care, education welfare, early help, or mental health services, to ensure joined-up planning and support.
We also offer high quality psychological supervision and reflective practice to support the emotional resilience and wellbeing of educational professionals. Many staff within education settings are faced with the task of supporting vulnerable children and families, frequently in the context of high level distress, complex needs and challenging professional dynamics. Supervision can help staff navigate difficult situations, improve relational approaches and stay grounded and effective in their work, whilst safeguarding their own mental health.
Staff Wellbeing & Psychological Support
We recognise that working in education and support services, often under high levels of pressure and expectation, can take a real toll on staff wellbeing. Supporting children and families through complex and often distressing circumstances is vital, but it isn’t easy. Over time, this can lead to emotional exhaustion, burnout, and a sense of disconnection.
At CMCAFS, we believe that in order to care well for others, professionals need to feel cared for themselves. That’s why we offer a range of staff wellbeing and support services designed specifically for schools and the wider teams around them.
Our approach creates space to acknowledge the emotional demands of the work, build psychological safety, and strengthen staff wellbeing at both an individual and systemic level. We work collaboratively to:
- Raise awareness of the cultures and pressures staff are working within
- Formulate and reflect on team needs
- Develop psychologically informed approaches to support staff in their roles
- Design interventions that promote connection, trust, and team resilience
Whether you’re looking to enhance team wellbeing, prevent burnout, or embed a more supportive workplace culture, we can help create the conditions where staff feel valued, understood, and equipped to thrive.
Clinical Psychology Assessment & Intervention for Children, Young People & Families
We offer tailored psychological support for children, young people, and families, designed to meet their specific needs and circumstances.
Our team of HCPC-registered Clinical Psychologists brings extensive experience in delivering evidence-based therapeutic interventions to children, their families or carers, and the professionals around them. Interventions we offer include Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Video Interaction Guidance (VIG), Body-Unprepared Sensory Solutions (BUSS), Mentalisation-Based Therapy (MBT), cognitive assessments, and more.
Support can be offered on an individual basis or within group settings, depending on what best suits the needs of the child and their network. Every intervention is carefully considered and delivered as part of a wider, psychologically informed approach.
All members of our team receive regular clinical supervision to ensure the highest standards of care, reflection, and quality assurance in the support we provide.
Local Authority Wide/Multiple Setting Approaches to Psychologically-Informed Care in Education
We specialise in providing psychological input to local authorities and multi-academy trusts to strategically develop Psychologically Informed Care across large groups of schools (including the provision of ongoing strategic support, training, supervision and consultation to senior leads across those setting, and facilitating networking opportunities across schools).
Whole School Approaches & Strategic Support
Our psychologists specialise in working with schools and colleges to apply psychological thinking at an organisational level through collaboratively developing innovative, bespoke, psychologically-informed frameworks of care. These frameworks are evidence-based and draw upon psychological theory relating to attachment, child development, resilience and systemic practice.
This process includes thinking about how settings can create a culture of wellbeing:
- key principles of delivering psychologically responsive care
- bringing staff ‘on board’ with a whole setting approach
- identifying and understanding the needs of children and providing targeted support where needed
- supporting staff wellbeing
- working collaboratively with other agencies and organisations to address mental health and wellbeing.
We support settings to translate this all into a strategic action plan to address the specific needs of their children, young people, staff and wider community. We are able to support settings to embed this through ongoing training, supervision and leadership support.
Research, Innovation & Policy Development
We’re proud to collaborate with universities across the North West, providing supervision for a number of doctoral-level research projects. Current areas of focus include trauma-responsive care in education, staff and pupil wellbeing, inclusive practice, psychological safety in schools, and psychologically informed leadership.
Our Story
We are a team of Clinical Psychologists united by a shared belief:
that the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is best supported when we work together, with families, schools, and the wider communities around them.
No child’s needs exist in isolation
Our journey began in the NHS, where each of us started our careers as psychologists working in mental health services. As we supported children and young people we noticed a consistent truth: no child’s needs exist in isolation. The challenges children faced were rarely something that could be ‘solved’ by a single psychological intervention. Instead, these needs were deeply rooted in context, shaped by experiences, relationships, and the systems they live within.
What we found time and again was that one of the most consistent and powerful protective influences in a child’s life was often found in their school. Within the relationships they had with trusted adults and peers, and within the rhythms and routines of everyday school life, there was an enormous potential for healing, safety, and growth. When we were able to work directly with school staff, sharing psychological thinking, co-creating support plans, and holding space for reflection, we saw outcomes that were not only more positive, but more sustainable.
It was from this realisation that our team came together to form CMCAFS Education Services in 2020.
Our Mission
To work creatively and collaboratively with schools, colleges, local authorities and charitable organisations to provide psychologically responsive care to children and young people.
Collaboration
Since our founding, our team has grown to include four experienced Clinical Psychologists. We now work with local authorities, education trusts, individual schools and their multi-agency partners across the UK, offering a range of services, from clinical assessment and intervention to leadership consultation, service design, training, and clinical supervision.
Awards & Recognition
We’re especially proud of the transformational projects we’ve developed in partnership with education services, such as the Liverpool HEARTS Project and The Trafford BELONG project, both of which support large networks of schools to embed attachment and trauma-responsive care across their whole communities. This work has received both local and national recognition, including the prestigious 2023 Pearson Gold Award for Impact Through Partnership (as seen on the BBC) and multiple ARC awards at both regional and national level.
What people say
”
Changing Minds are integral in the delivery of our BELONG (Attachment Aware and Trauma Informed Schools) Programme,
providing regular supervision for programme leads and whole school training.Changing Minds also support us to meet our extended duties as a Virtual School by providing Psychological Consultation regarding Looked After Children, Previously Looked After Children, Children in Need and children in Kinship Care.Their expertise and insights have supported more than a quarter of the schools in our Local Authority to better understand and to meet the needs of our most vulnerable children”
”
Head of Trafford Virtual School
Trafford Virtual School
”
These sessions have been brilliant. Having the time and space to reflect with (psychologist) has been invaluable-this has had the biggest impact on us as individuals and our practice so far.
”
Belong Head Teacher
Trafford Virtual School
”
Without doubt, our psychologically responsive approach to behaviour would not be so well embedded in our school without input from (CMCAFS).
Having access to the expertise, empathy and knowledge provided by (CMCAFS) whether it be through staff training or psychological consultations around some of our students with complex needs, has meant that we can develop a real understanding of the whole child, as well as improving our relationships with families, who previously may have been hard to reach. Our staff who do the most direct work with our complex children and young people, including pastoral staff, our in-house family support workers and therapist, have benefited from high quality supervision and a safe collective space where they can share ongoing worries and concerns. The support has been invaluable and has formed an integral part of ensuring our pilot project with the local authority is a success.
”
Deputy headteacher
The Belvedere Academy
”
Our (Departmental Lead) and was telling me how impactful your training was. He said the team found it the most useful CPD session they had ever had – praise indeed. They said your delivery style was brilliant.
”
Head of Student Support
Trafford College
Collaborative Projects
The HEARTS Project
A transformative initiative dedicated to building the capacity of Liverpool schools to embed Attachment and Trauma Responsive Care across entire school communities.
The BELONG Project
A pioneering initiative aimed at empowering schools and colleges across Trafford to embed Attachment and Trauma Responsive Care throughout their communities.
Winner of ARC Award in 2025.
Trafford College
To support the strategic rollout of relational practice across its two campuses.
Trafford Virtual School (Trafford Council)
The CMCAFS team is working in partnership with Trafford Virtual School to deliver regular psychological consultation to multi-disciplinary teams supporting looked-after children across the borough.
North Liverpool Learning Network Partnerships
To provide ongoing psychological support to SENCOs across multiple schools.
Liverpool Virtual School. (Liverpool City Council)
Working to deliver regular psychological consultation to multi-disciplinary teams supporting looked-after children across the city..
Hope School
This inspiring collaboration has focused on embedding Attachment and Trauma Responsive Care at every level of the school community.
Belvedere & The Girls Day School Trust
The project aimed to create and pilot a model of Internal Alternative Provision (IAP) within The Belvedere Academy – a mainstream secondary school for girls, designed to support some of the most vulnerable pupils with identified social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs.