Tag: school psychology
Clinician’s Corner: A Google Classroom Comes to Life
We knew the kids were accessing wellness information (on our Clinician’s Corner site) when they started sharing personal struggles regarding mood, eating habits, and behaviors. Julie and I noticed that the kids were either commenting on not being active, their weight gain, or in their words, “laziness.”
Read More
Creating Opportunity for Collaboration in a Crisis
Rather than viewing the pandemic and school shutdown as a professional dilemma, colleagues Lori Klein and Julie Robinson approached the situation as an opportunity. Lori, a School Social Worker, and Julie, a School Psychologist, expanded their reach by creating a virtual classroom. What started as a virtual lifeline grew into a live, interactive community focused around social-emotional competencies with a splash of fun.
Read More
The Importance of Acknowledgement in Secondary Schools (Even Though They’re Teenagers)
The keys for acknowledgment, from my research and experience, including preparing your staff and making sure you have the systems in place to support your efforts. Whatever you do, do not roll out any approaches until you have the systems to support them or the data to evaluate them! I would love to know what works for you when acknowledging your students and staff.
Read More
(Updated) THE 2020 LOYOLA SUMMER INSTITUTE & HOW YOU CAN JOIN OUR SSW PLC THIS YEAR: How We’re “Making It Happen”
Along with teaching at Loyola, I am also the Director of the online School Mental Health Advanced Practice Program (SMHAPP) as well as the Family and School Partnership Program (FSPP). To date, the FSPP has provided advanced training CEUs to over 1,500 school mental health professionals. including our 15th Annual Summer Institute this July 16th & 17th. We’ll have lots more to tell you about the special stuff we have planned for our 15th year, including the speakers, registration links etc. by the end of February, but for now, save the dates to join us in beautiful downtown Chicago at our Water Tower Campus this July!
Read More
(Updated) Supporting Our Schools During The COVID-19 Crisis: SSWNetwork Forum Resources
In response to the rapidly-changing COVID-19 situation and questions from our SSWNetwork members, we are sharing some resources here, first two FAQ documents from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and the second, a transcript of our 3/14 LiveChat where we discussed our responses to the COVID-19 crisis in our states and school districts, and shared strategies for how to turn the school shut-downs happening in our districts into an opportunity to promote wellness and SEL for our students, staff colleagues, and ourselves.
Read More
Helping School Clinicians Become Leaders: A 4-Year Midwest PBIS/Loyola SMHAPP Partnership Project
The changing role of the school mental health (SMH) clinician is an urgent issue, as we see increased mental health needs in our schools, and a need for more prevention work to get to kids earlier–still, SMH clinicians tell us that they are overwhelmed and struggle to implement EBP and work effectively within a 3-tier MTSS prevention framework. For the past 4 years, in collaboration with the expert educational trainers at Midwest PBIS, we’ve been focusing on identifying some of the key barriers to why so many school clinicians struggle, and what things they might need to become the Clinician Leaders they want to be for their schools. This is the first of our 4 articles sharing what we’ve learned and how we are helping build clinician leaders.
Read More
Developing OUR OWN Social and Emotional Competence: SEL Isn’t Just For Our Students (SSWN Forum)
As a school psychologist and a 2nd year student in the School Mental Health Advanced Practice Program at Loyola, I am in the midst of a school change project in my small rural school district. The project I’m steeped in is to build teacher capacity to implement a tier I social and emotional curriculum in our 4 year old kindergarten through 6th grade classrooms. Professional development and on-going training is a big part of the success of this project. As we train our staff to teach the SEL curriculum to our students, we can’t neglect to acknowledge that to teach SEL to students, we as adults must be competent in our own social and emotional awareness and abilities. If we engage our staff in ongoing adult social and emotional learning, we will hopefully foster a supportive environment not only for students, but for staff as well.
Read More
“Journaling” the Journey: Navigating SEL Implementation
Within this ‘journal entry’ of our school’s quest to implement tier I SEL, I continue to reflect on things not yet seen and adventures not yet taken. Strategies that we have yet to incorporate include ongoing training opportunities in the form of monthly meetings. It is with great excitement that we continue on this journey with our teachers, students, and the parent community.
Read More
