Dr Tracy Laverick is a lecturer and Senior Educational Psychologist. With a background in primary teaching with a specialism in geography. Following several years teaching she retrained as an Educational Psychologist, taking on a variety of specialist areas including developing Special Educational Needs (SEN) Provision for the Early Years and Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs.  She moved to the position of Acting Principal Educational Psychologist for the Local Authority ensuring the provision of Educational Psychology Services within the area. As an Educational Psychologist she has worked delivering therapeutic services into secondary schools, delivered training on Developmental Trauma, Motivational Interviewing, Precision Teaching etc. to staff, led teams to support families and developed links to Early Help. 

Tracy has published several resources for use in schools including a Challenging Minds programme for developing problem solving skills in primary children and an Aspirations Reource to structure conversations with young people over possible futures. She was asked to talk about this resource at the DECP conference. 

Tracy's research specialisms are in communication around SEND needs, and some of the benefits and barriers to working collaboratively with parents, teachers, and local authority staff to improve outcomes for children. Areas of interest include parent's experiences of working with school staff when their child has challenging behaviour and on gaining the views of local authority SEND officers on the Education Health and Care Plan process. 

Since joining Leeds Trinity university in January 2020 Tracy shares this knowledge of working with children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) through teaching on the NASENCO award and on modules towards the Masters Degree in Children and Young People's Mental Health. 

Tracy is on the ethics committee for the Institute of Childhood and Education. She has been successful in gaining funding bids to complete the work with local authority SEND officers and was invited to write a blog on the research by the Inside Government: Schools website.