Students with emotional and behavioral challenges consistently compromise their learning environment. Many drop out or leave school unprepared for the future (Stormont, Thomas, & Van Garderen, 2012). No single group of educators understands the challenges of these students as well as classroom teachers, and yet they often report feeling unprepared to teach them or to intervene with their social, emotional, and behavioral problems (Reinke, Stormont, Herman, Puri, & Goel, 2011). The role of the school psychologist has never been so important, as these students continue to enter classrooms at record levels (Nelson, Benner, Lane, & Smith, 2004). The goal of the program is to review the four pillars of collaboration for school psychologists, which will allow them to connect with educators, students, and families who are struggling with emotional and behavioral challenges.

Learning objectives:

• Develop a better understanding of how to interpret challenging behavior and emotions in children.

• Discuss the four “Pillars of Collaboration” and the theory behind what makes each one so critical.

• Examine the social influences within a classroom and school culture, and the powerful effects these influences have on this challenging population of students.

• Describe how to become more effective advocates for challenging children, a group that rarely knows how to advocate for themselves effectively.

Program Code: EBC3
3 CE Credits
Fee: $65

Craig Murphy, PhD, is a nationally certified school psychologist. He received his PhD and MS from Pennsylvania State University in school psychology. He is a core faculty member in the School Psychology Program at William James College and worked as a school psychologist in the Newton Public Schools for fifteen years. In that time, Dr. Murphy has conducted hundreds of evaluations of children and adolescents. His professional and research interests include understanding, evaluating, and supporting behavioral/social-emotional functioning in children; bridging the gap between research and practice in school psychology; statistics; and research methodology. His research experiences include helping to secure over $3 million in federal funds through two major federal grant competitions; both of which Dr. Murphy was designated as the Project Director. Finally, Dr. Murphy has presented on topics related to social-emotional assessment at several national conferences, including the annual conference for the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) in Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.