About us

Solent Psychology is an educational psychology service run by Simon Burnham and Nicky Phillips. We have a combined experience of over 40 years working as educational psychologists in local authority teams and in the independent sector. All of our work is now in private, independent practice. We are based in Portsmouth, Hampshire and work throughout the Solent region.

Simon qualified as an educational psychologist in 1997 and has been a senior educational psychologist and a manager in a local authority EP service. He was a tutor on the doctoral training course for educational psychologists at Southampton University for 15 years and is listed as an expert witness on the British Psychological Society's Directory of Chartered Psychologists. Simon has served on the DECP's Training Committee and has been an external and internal examiner of doctoral theses in educational psychology. Nicky qualified in 2002. She previously ran Portsmouth local authority’s preschool autism outreach service PELICAN and for 10 years was a member of the Autism Assessment Team. The first edition of her book about Identiplay was shortlisted for a NASEN book award in 2007. Nicky has provided training and evaluation services for the national Challenge the Gap programme which helps schools to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.

We have published books, articles and good practice guidelines for non-specialist audiences, as well as research papers in academic journals. We both have considerable experience of providing training in a range of areas for audiences including parents and professionals, and we have presented our work and research at conferences and CPD events across the country.