School Psychology Awareness Month

School psychologists work collaboratively with both special education and regular education programs. They function as part of the school teams and are committed to providing comprehensive services to students and school staff. The school psychology program focuses on problem prevention, intervention and diagnostic assessment. The prevention services include planning and consulting with teachers and parents to develop strategies to assist students at risk for learning and behavior concerns. Intervention services involve collaborating with school staff and parents on strategies targeting academic, behavioral and social-emotional problems, assisting schools in providing crisis-intervention services and facilitating community referrals for student problems that fall outside the scope of educational services. Diagnostic assessment involves conducting psychological evaluations that address the academic and behavioral/emotional functioning of students and providing interpretive conferences of assessment results to parents and school staff.

The WCPSS School Psychology Section has several specialized teams composed of psychologists who have special training and expertise in various areas and focus on providing services to diverse populations of students. These include an Autism Team, Behaviorally/Emotionally Disabled Team, Crisis Intervention Team, Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Team, Hearing Impaired Team and the Traumatic Brain Injured Team.

The school psychologists also serve on various departmental professional committees designed to address current issues in the field and to improve services to students and schools.

School psychologists are team members who listen to problems, help generate ideas for parents and staff and appreciate the wonder and diversity of each child's development and capacity for learning. We would like to recognize the hard work of all our school psychologists during School Psychology Awareness Month.