School Psychology

The School Psychology Program includes:

• Response to Threats of Suicide or Violence Towards Others,

• Student Behavior: FBA/BIP, De-escalation, Seclusion and Restraint,

• Counseling, Assessments, Interventions, and Crisis Prevention and Response

School psychologists provide a range of services to assist children and adolescents in their learning, growth and development by providing supportive services to help students meet academic and emotional challenges. These services consist of direct and indirect interventions that require coordination with the entire educational system, including the students, teachers, counselors, nurses, administrators, other school personnel, families, community agencies, and a variety of others that may be important on an individual basis. They tailor their services to the particular needs of each child/adolescent and each situation.

Some of the core services of a School Psychologist include: consultation, assessment, intervention, education, prevention, and delivery of services to address the educational, emotional, social, and career needs of students and families. The primary intent is to promote mental and physical wellness and facilitate learning of students. They help support the attainment of the goals outlined in the DoDEA Blueprint for Continuous Improvement. The overall goal of the psychological services program is to increase student capacity to overcome academic, personal, and social problems that could hinder their attainment of educational success and a satisfying and productive life.

In concert with the DoDEA Blueprint for Continuous Improvement, the DoDEA Pacific East has positioned school psychologists to follow the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Model in the complexes where they serve.

The Pacific East District has had a positive impact on the school psychology program as evidenced by:

• Providing school psychologists with quarterly training designed specially to support school psychologists and their roles

• Providing professional development, guidance, consistency, resources, and advocacy for school psychologists and school psychology positions

• Impacting threats of suicide and violence towards others as evidenced by:

  • Increased accuracy of completed screenings including summary letters and Serious Incident Reports

  • More consistency in creating re-entry and safety plans for students returning to school after making these threats and seeking outside help.

  • Requesting wellness checks and making immediate referrals for students unable to be screened in person due to COVID-19 restrictions

• Providing training to psychologists regarding Safe Crisis Management (SCM)

• Improved consistency with processes for supporting student behaviors including team participation and parent permissions for Functional Behavior Assessments (FBAs) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIPs)

• Advocating for better school psychology ratios than the DoDEA-assigned ratio of one school psychologist to one thousand students to increase from 8 positions to 11 positions

Provided by HQ:

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) Suicide-Violence (Each region made minor changes)

• Administrative Instruction (AI) 2510.01 Student Behavior Interventions

• AI 2500.01 Instructional Services for Home or Hospital

• AI 1356.01 DoDEA Family Advocacy Program Process for Reporting Incidents of Supsected Child Abuse and Neglect.

• DoDEA Manual 2946.4 School Psychological Services Manual

• DoDEA Regulation 2946.03 School Psychological Services

• Both state that we follow the NASP practice Model

• Crisis Management Team Resources

• AI 1443.02: Prohibited Sexual, Sex-based, and Other related Abusive Misconduct Reporting and response

• Quarterly Professional Development

DoDEA HQ provided quarterly training designed specially to support school psychologists and their roles.

• Suicide- including prevention, screenings, and response

• Threats of Violence: including prevention, screenings, and response

• Multi-Tiered systems of Supports (MTSS): including Social Emotional Learning (SEL), SW-PBIS and SST, Benchmarks

• Behaviors of Concern: including Problematic Sexual Behaviors in Children and Youth (PSB-CY), prevention, FBA/BIP, Replacement Behaviors, Instruction, etc.

• Child Abuse and Neglect

• Special Education - ADHD- Educational Identification of ADHD

• Section 504 Information and Resources

• Crisis Team Information and Resources

• Transgender Information and Resources

• DoDEA Manual 2946.4 School Psychological Services (JUN 2004)

• DoDEA Regulation 2000.03 Student Grade Level Placement. This Regulation updates policy and responsibilities for grade level placement of Department of Defense Dependents Education Activity (DoDEA) students (2 MAR 2010).

• Schoology Group for School Psychologists

  • BASC 3 and Behavior Intervention Guide including video instruction (22-25 JUL 2016)

  • Interpreting the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fifth Edition (WISC-V) including several resources, Flynn Effect meta-analysis, webinars, Ted Talks, and Member exchanges and discussions from the (19-27 JUL 2016)

  • The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) Practice Model (21-25 JUL 2016) including overview, brochure, domains and video. These tools can also be found here.

  • Mental Health Screening (3 & 23 JAN & 22 MAY 2017) including NASP documents, debating the pros and cons, articles, research and team tools.

  • Department of Defense Memos (with Departments of Justice and Education) on Transgender Issues (18-30 NOV 2016)

  • Changes in the DSM-5: Implications for School Psychologists (19-26 JUL 2016 and 23 JAN 2017)

  • Added Tools of the Trade folder for school psychologists to share handouts and templates used in the mission to help

  • Threat Assessment SOP including the screening tool, examples, example action plans, sample cases to score, CA Law regarding suicide prvention and submitting Serious Incident Reports (SIRs) (21-25 JUL 2016 and 21 SEP 2017)

• Blue Whale Challenge (and by extension Memo Challenge) (28 FEB- 1 MAR 2019)

• Quarterly Trainings in Schoology: Course Name: School Psychology Professional Learning Portal: Section 001

  • Quarter 1: Educational Identification of ADHD

  • Quarter 1: Child Abuse and Neglect

  • Quarter 1: PSB-CY -Problematic Sexual Behavior- Child and Youth

  • Quarter 1: SEAS Schools Empowering At-risk Students - Login

  • Quarter 1: Section 504 Accommodations

  • Quarter 2: New Child Abuse Issuance: DoDEA Administrative Instruction 1356.01

  • Quarter 2: PSB-CY Problematic Sexual Behavior in Adolescence and Trauma Informed Care

  • Quarter 2: School Psychologist Resources Referenced in the Module: understanding and managing feelings, asking for help, stress and mood, alcohol-drugs-and risks, dealing with distress

  • Quarter 2: SEAS Facilitator Guide and Lesson Plans

  • Quarter 2: Section 504 Initial Eligibility Determination and Child Find

  • Quarter 3: Crisis Team Resources, Planning and Training, Pull-N-Go and Print-and-Go checklists, Understanding Death Print-and-Go, Memorial Activities & Anniversaries Print-and-go, After Action Crisis Report Print-and-Go

  • Quarter 3: PSB-CY and Trauma-informed Care Using Case Studies

  • Quarter 3: SEAS Zero Suicide: Training for Trainers

  • Quarter 3: Section 504 Accommodation Plans & Aspen

  • Quarter 3: Looking Back at Threat Screening SOP

  • Quarter 4: PSB-CY Recognizing, Responding to and reporting

  • Quarter 4: Section 504 Evaluation Process & Office for Civil Rights Guidelines

  • Quarter 4: Suicide Postvention for Student Suicide

• Quarterly Trainings in Schoology: Course Name: School Psychology Professional Learning Portal: Section 001

  • BOY Beginning of the school-year- Crisis Team - School Safety & Behavioral Threat Management

  • Quarter 1: School Safety: Behavioral Threat Assessment Tools

  • Quarter 2: PSB-CY: Consultation with Teachers and Parents on PBS-CY

  • Quarter 3: PSB-CY: Assessment and Progress Monitoring for PSB-CY

  • Quarter 3: SoS Training Orientation Video

  • Quarter 3: Secondary Schools: SOS Facilitator Training and Materials (everyone does it)

  • Quarter 3: SOS Training Orientation Video

  • Quarter 3: SOS Facilitator Training and Materials for secondary schools (all should do it)

  • Quarter 4: Intervention Plans and Progress Monitoring for PSB-CY

  • Quarter 4: SOS Signs of Suicide: Facilitator Training and Knowledge Check

  • Quarter 4: Signs of Suicide: Facilitator Training

• Meeting Minutes between HQ and District School psychology/504/school nursing ISS. (2 SEP 2020)

• Quarterly Trainings in Schoology: Course Name: School Psychology Professional Learning Portal: Section 001

  • BOY Beginning of the Year: SEAS Coping Skills- How to Create Asynchronous Coping Skills Lessons for Students

  • Quarter 1: MTSS Overview of MTSS and Relevant DoDEA Policy

  • Quarter 1: MTSS Important Notice: MTSS Links- PLEASE READ!

  • Quarter 1: Psychological First Aid (PFA) & Disaster Behavioral Mental Health

  • Quarter 2: MTSS Benchmarks, Progress Check-ins, and Evaluations

  • Quarter 3: SEL Organizing Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Efforts

  • Quarter 4: SW-PBIS School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

Pacific East District:

• HQ used a ratio of 1 school psychologist per 1,000 students in a District to Allocate Positions. Most years, this means 8-8.5 School psychology positions were allocated to the district from HQ by Manpower. Exceptions to Policy had to be made to continue with the higher number of positions that we have had.

  • 2019-05 Pacific East District’s Case for 10.5 School Psychology Positions

  • 2020-05 Pacific East District’s Case for 10.5-11 School Psychology Positions

  • 2021-02 Pacific East District’s Case for 10.5-11 School Psychology Positions

  • 2022-01 Pacific East District’s Advocacy for 11 School Psychology Positions

  • 2022-Updating Currently- Pacific East District’s Advocacy for 11 School Psychology Positions

• Google Shared Drive and later Teams Drives with private channels were created and stocked with easty to access regulations, policies, administrative instructions, documentation, resources, presentations, etc.

• Advocated for additional School Psychology Positions

• Provided Remote Learning Updates for Digital Resources including Social Emotional Links

• Program Reviews with After Action Reports

  • It was discovered that in at least one complex individuals who had Quarterly training offered through Schoology that was different from the CCR training were required to attend the other CCR training instead rather than the training developed specifically for their roles. This was corrected.

  • School Psychologists often support multiple schools, but are also being required to lead or chair multiple teams, which makes time management a challenge while also providing services that fit the DoDEA expectations and the NASP model.

• Provide direct support when there was a vacancy:

  • Sullivans - Provided support for three student behavior cases (7 SEP 2018)

• Provided National Association of School Psychologists handouts:

  • Talking to Children About COVID-19 A Parent Resource (NASP and NASN 29 FEB 2020)

  • Preparing for Infectious Disease Epidemics: Brief Tips for School Mental Health Professionals (NASP 4 MAR 2020)

  • Preparing for Pandemic Illness: Guidelines for School Administrators and Crisis Teams (NASP 4 MAR 2020)

  • Responding to COVID-19: Brief Action Steps for School Crisis Response Teams (NASP 13 MAR 2020)

• Advocated for additional School Psychology Positions Above the allocated 8.5 from Manpower (MAY 2020)

• Added a spreadsheet with links to the Quarterly Schoology Trainings. All were related to suicide, threat screenings and violence. This is especially important for new staff members who were not here to complete the trainings when they were offered. This document has been shared by the Pacific East District with all other DoDEA districts (19 JUN 2020)

• School Psychology ISS continued as Point of Contact and Instructor/Trainer shown in SY 2017-2018.

• Created and Provided Training: DoDEA Pacific East Student Support Services, Working in a Remote Learning Environment (9 SEP 2020)

• Welcome to School Year 2020-2021 for Pacific School Psychologists This document has important information for the school-year and school psychology programming expectations (AUG 2020)

• School Psychology/504 Expectations Memo (14 AUG 2020)

• Student Behavior Interventions Trainings including Administrative Instruction 2510.01

  • Staff Presentation (6 NOV 2020)

  • Full Presentation (6 NOV 2020)

• Student Support Teams Training Documents

• Meeting Minutes Training Documents

• Accommodations Training Documents

• Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIP) Training Documents

• Response to Threats of Suicide and Threats of Violence Towards Others Training Review

• Creating PDFs of required documents with digital signature capability

• Due to COVID-19 restrictions, developed virtual trainings for not only school psychologists and the team leads for which this office was a point of contact, but also for other interested or impacted staff members in:

  • All Staff:

    • Student Behavior Interventions

    • Student Support Teams

    • Meeting Minutes

    • Accommodations

    • FBAs and BIPs

    • COVID-19 Operational Guidance and Protocols

  • Instructions for creating PDFs of required documents with digital signature capability

  • Created Microsoft Teams and private channels, allowing for uploading personally identifiable information (PII) to private school channels within these teams and provided training:

    • Pac East: Suicidality and Threats

    • Pac East: Seclusion-Restraint

    • Pac East: Student Support Teams

    • Pac East: 504 Teams

    • Pac East: Crisis Teams

    • Pac East: School Psychologists

    • (Pac East: School Nurses)

• Made fillable the DODEA Request for Services From the School Psychologist (14 OCT 2020)

• Stopped meeting monthly, because the school psychologists started meeting as a focused collaboration team weekly. By Second Semester, began meeting again monthly outside the purview of focused collaboration.

• Created and provided BEST PRACTICE Comparison of School Counseling and School Psychology training and expected roles based on American School Counselor Association (ASCA) and National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) advocacy

Co-Developed a Welcome to School Year 2020-2021 for school psychologists in the Pacific Region