Daniel Cumber Psychology

28/05/2026

08/05/2026

Blessed to have found some exciting change partners for the next stages. I've been working on some exciting developments which I am happy to share.

Excited to announce that Daniel Cumber Psychology now specialises in primary and early years work; offering consultation, whole school development, supervision, coaching and community work. My work with MDTs in acquired brain injury will also continue along with several expansive projects.

Contact here for more info: www.danielcumber.com

I am delighted and honoured to be delivering high quality psychological supervision for individuals and groups of school and trust leaders, MAT CEOs, and leadership teams, ELSAs and SENDCos in all education settings working with me. I am also offering trauma informed supervision for DSLs to maximise containment and decrease secondary trauma effects using compassion focused supervision approaches learned from the one and only Dr Jo Taylor.

I am also going to be working on a multi year exciting, values driven, truly inclusive, (potentially transformative!) educational development project with using systemic approaches and action research methodology, together with university researchers and local partners. More on this soon. This one is very aligned with social justice.

I am further expanding my work with virtual schools and community interest groups with the help of Claire Prosser's and Abigail Wright's community circles as inspiration. Connected to this is my work in nurseries alongside my partner Occupational Therapist and Sensory Integration Practitioner Luanne Donnelly.

To help with these expansions I am hiring a fantastic Assistant Educational Psychologist to help further develop the service and increase capacity for access to educational psychology.

Thanks to Dr Fiona Coley and Maxine Caine for providing wonderful scaffolding and helping me to thrive towards my values in working life.

The future is bright 🌞 looking forward to all the fantastic collaboration and real change for children and young people, their families and education staff that lies ahead.

10/12/2025

🎄 Navigating the : Essential Tips for Supporting Children with Attachment and Trauma Related Needs at Christmas/Winter Break 🎁

Here are some psychological tips for Parents & Carers to make this an easier time:

1. Regulate Yourself First 🧘: It is vital to prioritise your own emotional regulation. If you feel overwhelmed, your child will likely sense it. Acknowledging your own feelings towards this time will maintain empathy and connection.
2. Keep Excitement Low Key🔑: Sometimes intense positive feelings like excitement can register as stress for traumatised children. Reducing the excitement actively helps reduce stress.
3. Prioritise Predictability 🗓️: Christmas means changes in expectations and routine. Combat stress by making the Christmas schedule explicit and predictable—write it out, draw it out, and repeat it, aiming to keep as much as possible the same as usual.
4. Manage Gifts Wisely 🎁: Remind your child that receiving presents is not dependent on their behaviour; they are worthy of love and gifts regardless. Keep presents low key and "bite-size". Very expensive or numerous gifts can be overwhelming, potentially leading to the child feeling the urge to break or reject them as a way to regulate intense feelings.
5. Explore Difficult Feelings 🤔: Be open, curious and empathetic about any memories, questions, or feelings your child holds at this time. Help them understand that it is okay to both enjoy Christmas and feel bad about it simultaneously.
6. Increase Support and Connection 🫂: During the holidays, your child needs more presence, more scaffolding, and more supervision. Foccus on activities like connecting, playing, making, and baking, ensuring the level of connection feels "just right".
7. 'Let Go of 'Shoulds' 🛑: Release any expectations for yourself or your child about what Christmas "should" feel like or look like. It is okay to avoid or adapt certain rituals, as this helps your child feel successful and avoids the feeling of "failing at Christmas".

Tips for School Staff:

1. Maintain Structure 🏫: During the lead-up to the holiday break, maintaining consistent routines and structure is helpful to reduce stress.
2. Increase Scaffolding ⬆️: Just like parents, staff should recognise that children need more supervision and scaffolding during times of high emotional anticipation (like the last days of term).
3. Support Transition Back 🔙: When children return, help them quickly get back into the momentum of 'normal' life. This means increasing familiar structure to restore predictable routines and habits e.g. relational check in/soft start.
4. Keeping in mind: Invite the child to write a message/hope and stick this on a bauble. Have a key member of staff lock this away safely, take a photo of this to give the child to allow them to feel kept in mind over the break.
5. Write a 'proud card' detailing the child's strengths and things you are proud of them for this term and send this home with them.
6. Use PACE. Particularly Acceptance and Empathy to explore any feelings and thoughts children have about the holiday period and to practice some safe grounding exercises to allow them to stay present and let lie the ghosts of the past.

28/08/2025

New year, New logo!

As any Educational Psychologist will know describing what we do is a common question for the profession. Our training is so involved, in depth and both broad and deep, that it can be challenging to sum up what we do in a single page let alone a logo, as anyone who has written a service brochure will know! Here is my attempt.

I wanted something to encapsulate the power of education and psychology to transform your life. with that in mind the logo has different meanings for me:

Book: This represents, for me, the power of education and learning generally as fertile soil from which to grow new shoots, and build a stable and lasting foundation. This is true, or should be true, no matter where you come from, both inside and outside of school systems. This includes life learning, experiences and connections.

Roots: I wanted to show community networks which we grow up in and the importance of meeting people where they are at, respecting their history and supporting and empowering them to positively grow in the direction of their choosing through the application of educational psychology to support the systems they are in for that change to occur.

Branches: These represent the collaboration and partnerships with children, young people and their families, education staff and multi agency professionals which are needed to promote positive change for children and young people and their families. Teamwork is crucial for this!

Leaves: The leaves of the tree represent all the different positive outcomes, trajectories and journeys that benefit from educational, child and community psychology: Children and young people, parents and carers, school and education staff and all other professionals who work with us.

Psi: The Psi symbol is associated with psychology as a whole and suggests reflection and application of psychology to the transformation and growth processes. Coming from a philosophy degree initially, for me it also has meaning grounded in ethics and what it is to live a good life. Human flourishing and working towards social justice are core values for me.

I'm pretty happy with this as an integrated communication of what I do.
I hope it will also become an anchor for me, reminding me why I do what I do, in pursuit of helping others flourish and live the best lives they can. Ultimately this is both a representation of my own journey and a hopeful expression of what I can offer others.

Through Daniel Cumber Psychology Ltd I am grateful for this opportunity to continue to give back and make a meaningful and effective difference to children and young people, their families and those who work with them.



www.danielcumber.com

12/07/2025

Helpful to see this visual about coercive control from the perspective of young children . Vital to realise awareness of coercive control for children and it's negative impacts so we can address and prevent it.

Useful safeguarding resource from the child's voice.

02/03/2025

I always bear this in mind, as to me it's a key tenet of Educational and Child Psychology, or it certainly should be.

Similar to our family sayings of:

"A stitch in time saves nine" and "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

Creating the conditions for meaningful belonging, and a sense of "mattering" is so vital for all children and young people. We can make a huge difference framing it this way.

21/12/2024

2/2"I always feel like he listens and gives his full attention, never feels like he is rushing or not got time. The advice and support for individual children is especially helpful, as this helps make their support package bespoke. I feel more knowledgeable and empowered in my role with Dans support.” - Pastoral Lead.

• “The ELSA supervision sessions for me were pitched just right, the correct balance of discussions about our own wellbeing and workloads, with ensuring we had support from colleagues and Dan, for any challenges with children we work with.” – ELSA

• “Dan’s support has been invaluable.” – Head Teacher

•"Dan actually listened to us. He really saw (my child). I feel for the first time in a long time that we have hope"- Parent

So thankful that my work is resonating and contributing to positive, meaningful changes for children, their families and school staff.

Happy Christmas/Winter Break to all my clients, colleagues, community and their families.

Time now for rest and rejuvenation.

See you all in 2025!

21/12/2024

Recent feedback from this term for Daniel Cumber Psychology Ltd (1/2)

• “Dan is so easy to talk to and I instantly felt at ease from our first supervision session. He is great at discussing specific cases and ways of working that could help. Dan has helped me identify personal barriers to my work and supported me with strategies to overcome these.” – ELSA

• “You go above and beyond to support not only the children that you work with but the staff too. Your advice is always child focussed and is clear and precise with practical and emotional guidance. I am inspired with the knowledge, commitment and dedication that you bring. You are helping our young people have a voice and be heard. Thank you” - SENDCO

• “Dan is very supportive, knowledgeable and caring towards staff and children. As SENDCO, Dan has been extremely helpful in supporting, supervising and planning out support across the school. Whenever I have needed advice or guidance, he has found time and worked with me to find solutions. Dan has worked with teaching staff with consultations and all staff fed back how valuable they found the time and the support given from Dan. The reports were comprehensive and has allowed staff to plan support. The children have been able to make progress based off recommendations and class teachers felt more empowered as they had an understanding of the needs that were being presented.” – SENDCO

• “Collaborative and solution focused approach. Feel like we are a team. Multi agency approach - works with SALT to develop the best support for our young people. Instrumental in supporting us to develop our Hub provisions for our children with complex needs. Always at the end of an email with advice.” - Deputy Head Teacher

• “Dan has extensive knowledge and a supportive, calm nature upskilling staff and building confidence.” – Head Teacher

• “Dan’s knowledge is exceptional and how he explains things clearly to ensure clarity really helps."

21/12/2024

Wrapping Up:
I am reflecting on this first term of full time practice since founding Daniel Cumber Psychology Ltd. It's been an amazing term, challenging and very rewarding.

Some highlights have included:

• Building and strengthening existing and new relationships with colleagues. Building the dream team!

• Setting up bespoke hub style provision to meet the increasing needs of children with SEND in schools across 14 schools (Primary and Secondary), now including collaboration with speech and language therapists.

• Successfully launching my trauma informed champion training within a secondary school using a dynamic cascade and coaching model to embed learning (pilot).

• Working strategically on organisational and group levels with a fantastic inclusive MAT.

• Delivering training in trauma informed approaches to hundreds of school staff across 10 schools.

• Using Video Enhanced Reflective Practice in 4 schools to upskill skills and confidence in staff working with children with complex needs.

• Holding the space for, and successfully problem solving with inspiring colleagues during critically difficult situations for their whole school.

• Supervision, coaching and consulting with passionate staff regarding a whole range of different strengths and needs.

• Bespoke planning and consultation including the support of new physical buildings in schools (material change) to embedded educational psychology in the environment at a secondary level to providing them with a safe base/secure haven from which to engage with their learning.

• Parent and Carer phone lines established.

•Undertook personalised and ongoing work to support with a rehabilitation clinic working with multidisciplinary teams and directly with young people and their families with acquired brain injuries over the next few years (post 16).

• Supervision groups of safeguarding and child protection teams.

22/11/2024

In great news to start the weekend, just heard that my thesis article on social justice in EP practice has now been published in the Journal of Educational and Child Psychology (British Psychological Society) in a special edition on Intersectional Identities, Education, Psychology and Social Justice.

Find it here:
https://explore.bps.org.uk/content/bpsecp/41/2/108

Thanks to my coauthor Anthea Gulliford for all her support in making this work the best it could be.

Feel free to DM for a copy free. As I understand it full access is included for BPS members.