Kate Farmer

Associate Lecturer and Senior Educational Psychologist

Dr Kate Farmer DEdPsy CPsychol AFBPsS is an Associate Lecturer teaching on our Doctorate course Child, community and educational psychology (M4) within the Child and Family Directorate at the Tavistock Centre.

Kate trained and worked as an early years teacher before completing a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Southampton in 2003. Her research explored children’s transition from hospital school to mainstream school. Kate has worked as an educational psychologist and senior educational psychologist in three local authorities in the east of England and inner London for over 20 years. She has held senior management and senior specialist roles, including leading a team of early years outreach providers and Portage practitioners delivering an early intervention service for children aged 0-5 years and their families and working at an organisational level to lead the redesign of the early years SEND services in one local authority. Kate has practiced in education and health contexts and has worked with an NHS child development service where she led a multi-disciplinary assessment team for children with complex learning needs. She has experience of supervising trainee educational psychologists, senior practitioner educational psychologists, teachers and early years practitioners.

Kate completed her Doctorate in Educational Psychology at University College London in 2022. Her research explored approaches to understanding the views of children with complex learning and communication needs for person-centred planning. She then worked as an Academic and Professional Tutor with the UCL Educational Psychology Group and continues to work with UCL as an Honorary Research Associate. Kate is also on the editorial board of Educational and Child Psychology and promotes the value of EP involvement in research activities to further the impact of educational psychology. Kate’s professional and research interests include early years, person-centred approaches, multi-agency working, dynamic assessment and mediated learning, sensory processing differences, autism, and profound and multiple learning difficulties.