EASTCONN is one of six Regional Education Service Centers (RESCs) in Connecticut, serving over 30 public school districts in the northeastern region. EASTCONN is a public non-profit organization committed to providing high-quality, affordable supports through approximately 600 professionals across a wide array of educational services—including K–12 student programs, special education, and consultation.
Interns are placed with EASTCONN’s Advancing Consultation & Coaching to Empower Student Success (ACCESS) team—a multidisciplinary group of practitioners dedicated to partnering with public schools to implement evidence-based, prevention-oriented practices through coaching and consultation. ACCESS aims to foster skills and sustainable capacity among school-based staff to implement evidence-based strategies and supports to maximize student outcomes. The ACCESS’s multidisciplinary team includes doctoral-level psychologists, neuropsychologists, school psychologists, general and special education teachers, BCBAs, and SLPs, providing interns the ability to collaborate with a range of professionals with various backgrounds.
ACCESS training is flexible and tailored to align consultation projects with each intern’s professional interests and training goals, supporting growth in areas such as behavioral consultation, systems change, assessment, and/or program evaluation. The ACCESS team utilizes the Developmental, Ecological, and Problem-Solving (DEP) Model to guide supervision. Interns travel within the EASTCONN region to consult with educators and administrators, providing ongoing consultation, coaching, and technical assistance customized to district and school-specific needs.
Key Areas of Training & Consultation:
School-based and systems-level consultation to improve academic engagement, reduce behaviors that interfere with learning, and support inclusionary practices across general and special education. Interns participate in multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) implementation at the classroom, school, and district level.
Data-driven problem-solving grounded in responsive models. Interns collaborate with school teams to set measurable goals, develop action plans and habits, monitor outcomes, and refine implementation strategies.
Assessment experience, including ecological/needs assessments, functional behavioral assessments (FBAs), psychoeducational/diagnostic testing, and neuropsychological evaluations.
Delivery of professional learning sessions, with interns designing and facilitating trainings around topics such as co-teaching, trauma-sensitive practices, executive functioning, improving attendance and engagement, and MTSS frameworks.
Program design and evaluation, collaborating on strategic initiatives—from resource allocation and sustainable frameworks to integrated interventions supporting schools, classes, alternative settings, and individual students.
Knowledge dissemination, contributing to empirical research, presenting findings at national/regional conferences, and engaging in the creation and sharing of research-based tools and resources for educators. Conference attendance is encouraged and supported.
Interns participate in the Connecticut Psychology Consortium’s monthly didactics alongside peers from other CPC training sites, enriching their experience through cross-site learning.
Ideal candidates are doctoral students in school psychology with backgrounds in behavioral analysis and functional assessment, who seek to develop advanced skills in consultation, coaching, systems-level program development, and data-driven problem-solving.
Learn more about the EASTCONN ACCESS Team here.