Kate Farmer

Senior Lecturer

Dr Kate Farmer is a Senior Lecturer/Year 2 lead within the Professional Doctorate in Child, Community and Educational Psychology. Kate is also a Senior Educational Psychologist and member of the senior leadership team in an inner London, Local Authority Educational Psychology Service.  

Kate trained and worked as an Early Years Teacher before completing a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology.  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 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 early years children with complex learning needs.  She has experience of supervising trainee and qualified educational psychologists, early years practitioners, youth workers, and teachers.  

Kate completed her Doctorate in Educational Psychology at University College London.  Her research explored approaches to understanding the views of children with complex learning and communication needs for person-centred planning.  Kate has been an Academic and Professional Tutor with the UCL Educational Psychology Group and is currently an Honorary Research Associate at UCL where she advises on doctoral research.    

 

Qualifications

• Doctorate in Educational Psychology – University College London
• MSc in Educational Psychology – University of Southampton
• PGCE Primary – University of Southampton
• BSc (Hons) Psychology – University of Southampton

 

Memberships of professional bodies

• Associate Fellow and Chartered Member of the British Psychological Society (BPS)
• Registered Practitioner Psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC)

 

Teaching roles

• Year 2 Lead for the Professional Doctorate in Child, Community and Educational Psychology (M4)
• Senior Lecturer teaching on the child development, assessment and intervention (CHAI) and research modules. 
• Professional doctorate supervisor and examiner

 

Research interests

• Complex learning and communication needs/profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) 
• Early years 
• Person-centred approaches in educational psychology practice and multi-disciplinary contexts
• Coproduction and service user involvement
• Grounded theory research methods

 

Current research projects

An exploration of how values-guided action can enhance ethical and reflexive research practice by trainee educational psychologists – research project with Dr Sarah Sivers.

 

Selected publications

Farmer, K., Hayes, B. Hobbs, C. & Miller, D. (Guest Eds.). (2025) Special issue on Reimagining Educational Psychology: Listening to the Next Generation. Educational and Child Psychology, 42 (3).    

Farmer, K. E., & Stringer, P. (2023). Understanding the views of children with profound and multiple learning difficulties for person‐centred planning. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 51, 499–508. 

 

Expert advisory roles

• Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology, University College London (2022 – present)
• Tavistock Research Ethics Committee (TREC) (2024-present)
• Member of the Editorial Board of the BPS DECP periodical Educational and Child Psychology (2022 – 2025)