[Kristen]
School Psychology, as a field is a great place
to be right now.
It's a really fantastic opportunity to work
in school settings, to work with educators,
to work with students, to work with families,
to really cut across the whole community.
[Janine]
One thing that's unique about our program
is that we believe in what we call the "expanded
model of practicing as a school psychologist,"
and that means that we focus not only on assessment,
but we also focus on counseling.
[James]
Maybe this child's not learning their math
or not learning to read because they're depressed
or highly anxious, and if we keep treating
the reading or the math, we're missing the
point that it's actually causing the issues.
And so we have a large emphasis on behavioral
interventions and behavioral assessment that
makes our school psych program pretty unique.
[Kristen]
I would describe year one as being very foundational.
Sometimes I tell students it's maybe the 10,000
foot view, of education principles, theories
of development, school structures and policy,
and practice issues that come to bear, for
School Psychologists.
Year two is much more like a 10 foot view.
It's very heavily practice oriented.
It's a lot of basic skill development, a lot
of student and classroom interaction.
And year three students are out on internship,
and near to being fully prepared to seek a
job.
[Alexis]
Third year, I was working in a school full-time,
and that was just, that was a great experience.
I had such a great supervisor.
I just did the job and got some feedback from
her and, you know, worked with her, learned
from her, and she learned from me.
[Janine]
What we find in our program is that our students
are so valued as interns, that they often
get offers for placement in the same districts
that they do their internship.
Some students as they're going through decide
that they have an interest in research and
they decide to apply to our doctoral program.
One thing I love about my team of faculty
is we are all different.
We have all different perspectives, but the
blend of having Kristen Missall focusing on
academic and interventions and early childhood,
and Jim Mazza, for him to be focused on doing
evidence based approaches to socio-emotional
learning in kids.
And then, for me to be focused on culture
responsive interventions that we have the
breadth of what school psychology is, and
we can have an emphasis on school mental health
in a way that other programs don't necessarily
have.
[James]
I think that we kind of show that we can be
different.
We can have different strengths, different
and different weaknesses, and we can pick
each other up.
We almost model what we're asking the cohort
model to look like.
[Janine]
My main goal is that students when they come
through that they are competent, that they
are confident in their abilities and that
they are willing to push boundaries when it
comes to the practice of school psychology.
[Alexis]
I feel like the UW gave me, gave me a good
way to come in and kind of remake each program
that I go into.
When I'm testing, I'm not just looking at
the kid as a number, they're getting this
certain number.
I'm writing down observations of how they're
doing each thing and I'm using that and interpreting
it.
It's not just the number.
It's, you know, seeing how they do something,
how they figure something out, and how's that
going to apply to them in school.
