Educational & Child Psychologist

 

• Specialist Educational and Child Psychologist from the United Kingdom
• HCPC registered Practitioner Psychologist (UK)
• CDA licenced Psychologist (Dubai)
• B.A.Hons (The University of Oxford, UK), MA (The University of Oxford, UK), D.Ed.C.Psyc (The University of Sheffield, UK)
• English Speaker

Professional Experience

Dr Caroline Murphy is a Specialist Psychologist with 19 years of experience in the field of Education. She qualified as a Doctor of Educational and Child Psychology in 2011. Dr Caroline has worked extensively with young people 0-25 years and their parent(s)/carer(s)/families. Dr Murphy’s career started in the UK where she worked in three different Local Government Children’s services across eight years. In the UK, her role as a psychologist was to work with a range of mainstream and specialist school settings to support them in their work with children and young people with additional needs. An integral part of her role involved research, systemic development work and training within schools and the Local Authority services. She complete assessment and provide Psychological Advice as part of the Authority’s Education, Health and Care needs assessments of those young children in the council, with the most complex needs. Dr Murphy has experience of working with a wide range of ethnicities and with children and families where English is an additional language. Her areas of specialism in the UK were: working with children looked after/adopted and their carers; supporting excluded young people and preventing exclusion from school settings; young offender support; Autism Spectrum Condition; and supporting families and young people with complex social, emotional and behavioural needs.

Dr Murphy has been practicing in the UAE since 2018. She was previously involved in a collaboration between a private company and the Abu Dhabi government’s education department, in the development of a first of its kind special school for Emirate Children and Young people with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition.

Dr Murphy is a published researcher and writer in her field.

Dr Murphy is passionate about supporting a trusting relationship with those she works with in order to facilitate their voice. She is motivated to ensure that individual clients develop their understanding of their experiences and needs so that their own knowledge can be used as a focus to complex solution finding, as well as when developing plans for support. She enjoys working with those closest to young people to enable and empower them to develop a rich picture and deep reflective understanding.

At DCHC, Special Needs Center In Dubai, Dr Caroline works collaboratively within our multidisciplinary team, in assessing and supporting a wide range of clients’ needs including:

• Emotional and behavioural (e.g., anger, sense of self, bullying, managing change, disruption in sleep and eating)
• Mental Health (e.g., anxiety, depression, mood disorders, grief, trauma, critical incident support)
• Physical, Sensory and Medical (assessing impact and supporting access to education and independent living)
• Social, Communication and interaction
• School avoidance and/or refusal
• Attachment, parenting and family relationships or systems
• Relationship difficulties with peers
• Cognition and learning (e.g., approach and attitude to learning, areas of cognitive strength, school stress, perfectionism, specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia/dyspraxia/dyscalculia/dysgraphia, executive function, memory, information processing, developmental language disorder, global developmental delay (Early years) and Intellectual disability)
• Developmental conditions (e.g., ADHD, ODD, ASC, sensory processing disorder)
• Independence and self-help (e.g., dressing, toileting, and supporting readiness for university, employment and independent living)

Dr Murphy uses a personalised approach to therapeutics which fits to each individual’s needs. Evidenced-based methods including the following are examples of some of the methods that can be used:

• Narrative and therapeutic stories and comic strips
• The therapeutic use of art and play
• CBT
• DBT
• PCP
• Solution Focused methodologies
• Guided relaxation
• Mindfulness and NLP
• Human Givens
• Restorative justice
• Solution focused and positive psychology approaches
• Video Interactive Guidance
• Motivational Interviewing

 Languages

English

Experience of working with interpreters for consultation and assessment