About Us

Developed by Educational Psychologists, for Educational Psychologists

We are Dr Rachel McKeating and Dr Deanne Bell, practising Educational Psychologists with experience across Local Authorities, independent services, universities and schools. Having worked in EP roles for many years, we understand the increasing pressures on the profession — rising caseloads, statutory deadlines, and the weight of administrative work that can pull us away from the psychological thinking that really matters.

EP Assist was born from a shared belief: we should spend more time with children, young people and families, and less time stuck in paperwork.

Our Story

EP Assist began when we started exploring how AI could support educational psychology practice. Through our research and development work, it quickly became clear that AI could genuinely reduce report-writing time, support consistency, and help EPs produce clear, structured work.

But existing AI tools were not built for Educational Psychologists.

We found ourselves frustrated by:

Concerns around data security and GDPR
A lack of control over generated content
The constant need to anonymise data
Copying and pasting into external systems
AI wording that didn’t align with statutory expectations or professional standards
Not linking directly with assessment tools

We realised that if EPs were going to use AI safely and effectively, we needed a bespoke platform — designed specifically for our profession.

So we developed one!

EP Assist exists because the tools we needed simply weren’t available.

Creating Tools That EPs Actually Need

Before creating EP Assist, we designed My School Experience Cards — a tool now widely used by EPs, SENCOs, ELSAs and teachers to help children share their views, strengths, and needs.

That project started in exactly the same way. We kept asking:
“Why doesn’t the resource we want already exist?”

The cards were our response: visual, accessible, practical, grounded in the four areas of need, and genuinely useful in day-to-day practice.

EP Assist follows the same philosophy.
When something essential to good practice doesn’t exist, why not develop it?

Both projects reflect our commitment to creating tools that make EP work clearer, more efficient, and more child-centred.

Our Mission

To create secure, intuitive, profession-specific tools that support EPs to work efficiently — without ever compromising professional judgement, ethics, or quality.

Our goal is not to replace the Educational Psychologist.
Our goal is to remove barriers, so EPs can focus on analysis, interpretation, and relationships.

Building EP Assist with Arch

We are developing EP Assist in partnership with Arch, a leading UK software development company with expertise in secure, scalable systems for public-sector and education settings.

Working with Arch allows us to ensure EP Assist is:

Secure and compliant
Technically robust
Professionally safe
Designed with modern UX/UI standards
Ready for the demands of real-world EP work

Together, we combine deep psychological practice knowledge with engineering and security expertise.