Advances in Children’s Rights and Children’s Well-BeingMeasu.docx

Advances in Children’s Rights and Children’s Well-Being
Measurement: Implications for School Psychologists
Hanita Kosher
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Xu Jiang
University of South Carolina
Asher Ben-Arieh
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
E. Scott Huebner
Recent years have brought important changes to the profession
of school psychology,
influenced by larger social, scientific, and political trends.
These trends include the
emergence of children’s rights agenda and advances in
children’s well-being measure-
ment. During these years, a growing public attention and
commitment to the notion of
children’s rights has developed, which is best expressed in the
United Nations Con-
vention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention outlines the
conditions necessary
to ensure and promote children’s well-being and calls for the
ongoing monitoring of
children’s well-being for accountability purposes. We articulate
advances in children’s
rights and children’s well-being measurement in the context of

children’s schooling
experiences in general and for school psychology in particular.
We highlight implica-
tions for the assessment roles of school psychologists, who
occupy a unique position at
the intersection of multiple subsystems of children’s overall
ecosystems. We argue that
the synergy between a rights-based agenda and advances in
children’s well-being
assessment methodology can provide valuable opportunities for
school psychology.
This synergy can help school communities establish perspective
and goals for chil-
dren’s well-being in rights respecting ways, using the most
promising well-being
assessment strategies.
Keywords: children’s rights, United Nations Convention on
Children’s Rights, child well-being,
subjective well-being, school psychology
Over the past several decades, growing pub-
lic attention to the notion of children’s rights
has emerged, along with a greater commitment
of responsibility to children’s care and develop-
ment to ensure that their rights are upheld (Pe-
terson-Badali, Morine, Ruck, & Slonim, 2004).
Additionally, the science of children’s well-
being, including the measurement of children’s
well-being, has also experienced considerable
growth (Ben-Arieh, 2008; Huebner & Hills,
2013). The overarching purpose of this article is
to articulate those advances in children’s rights
and children’s well-being measurement, partic-
ularly in the contexts of children’s schooling in

general and international school psychology in
particular. In recognition of the 25th anniver-
sary of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (1989; hereinafter referred
to as the Convention) in 2014, this article rep-
resents one in a series of eight articles that has
been organized through the cooperation of the
editors of six premier national and international
school psychology-related journals (Journal of
Educational and Psychological Consultation,
Journal of School Psychology, Psychology in
the Schools, School Psychology International,
Hanita Kosher, The Paul Bearwald School of Social
Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of Jerusalem;
Xu Jiang, Department of Psychology, University of South
Carolina; Asher Ben-Arieh, The Paul Bearwald School of
Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem; E. Scott Huebner, Department of Psychology,
University of South Carolina.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to E. Scott Huebner, Department of Psychology,
University of South Carolina, Pendleton St 1512, Columbia,
SC 29208. E-mail: [email protected]
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School Psychology Quarterly © 2014 American Psychological
Association
2014, Vol. 29, No. 1, 7–20 1045-3830/14/$12.00 DOI:
10.1037/spq0000051
7
mailto:[email protected]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/spq0000051
School Psychology Quarterly) to advance the
understanding and application of a children’s
rights approach for psychology in the schools.
In this particular article, we focus on the impli-
cations for the assessment roles of school psy-
chologists, who are extensively trained in as-
sessment methodology and who occupy a
central position at the intersection of multiple
levels of children’s overall ecosystem (Fagan &
Wise, 2007).
Children’s rights are a relatively new idea. Dur-
ing most of human history, children did not enjoy
any rights; they were viewed as the personal prop-
erty or extensions of their parents with few or no
legal rights (Stier, 1978). During the 19th century,
the conceptualization of childhood as a unique
period of life emerged along with attempts to
grant protection and provision rights to children.
However, this early recognition of children’s
rights was based on a view of children as passive,
weak, and vulnerable creatures, and therefore pri-
marily in need of protection (Hallett & Prout,
2003). During this period, children were perceived
as “human becomings” and were not recognized

as full human beings with freedoms and rights
(Alaimo & Klug, 2002).
It was not until the second half of the 20th
century that the focus of children’s rights
shifted from protection and provision rights to
rights of participation and self-determination,
based on the assertion that children are legal
persons who are entitled to many of the same
rights as adults (Peterson-Badali & Ruck,
2008). Increasing awareness of children’s self-
determination rights has led to a global move
toward increasing child participation in the de-
cisions affecting their lives (Cherney & Shing,
2008; Lansdown, Jimerson, & Shahroozi, in
press; Ruck & Horn, 2008).
The increased awareness of children’s rights
is reflected in the Convention, which was ad-
opted by the UN General Assembly in 1989.
Official commitments to the Convention have
been made by 193 of the world’s 195 recog-
nized nations, with the exception of the U.S.,
which has signed indicating intent to move to-
ward official commitment (i.e., ratification), and
Somalia. It is the most comprehensive and most
widely ratified of all human rights treaties, ad-
dressing a full range of rights for children.
The Convention affirms not only the child’s
right to protection from harm and abuse or the
provision of goods and services, but also the
right to develop into an autonomous adult and to
have a voice in matters that affect her or him
(Alaimo & Klug, 2002; Freeman, 1998; Par-

tridge, 2005; UNICEF, 2002). The Convention
highlights that the child is a human being, who
has the right to be respected as a unique indi-
vidual with her own perspective and personal
intentions by fellow human beings and by the
state, its institutions, and other organizations
(Krappmann, 2010).
It is common to address the full range of
children’s rights in the Convention according to
the “three Ps:” protection rights, provision
rights, and participation rights (Troope, 1996;
UNICEF, 2007). Provision rights refer to young
people’s right to the adequate provision of ser-
vices and resources to enable them to develop
their abilities (Ruck & Horn, 2008; UNICEF,
2007). Protection rights include the right to be
protected from neglect, abuse, exploitation, vio-
lence, cruel and degrading treatment, discrimina-
tion, invasion of privacy, exploitation, hazardous
work, and armed conflict (UNICEF, 2007). Par-
ticipation rights refer to the right of children to be
respected as active members of the society who
take part in decisions affecting them. This princi-
ple includes access to information; freedom of
movement, association, belief, and expression;
privacy; liberty; and development toward inde-
pendence (Alderson, 2008; Hart, 1991; UNICEF,
2002, 2007).
Since their formulation in the Convention, con-
sideration of children’s rights has become essen-
tial for comprehensive discussions of children’s
welfare. Over the years, notions of child welfare
and child well-being have become almost synon-
ymous with children’s rights. The Convention is a

common, acceptable framework to discuss chil-
dren’s status and well-being in various formula-
tions and institutions. The language and frame-
work of rights as expressed in the Convention
provides a moral, legislative, and substantive force
for children’s protection and services, including
their access to basic needs for everyday survival
(Khadka, 2013). The general notion of children’s
well-being is further situated within the context of
the Convention in the next section.
The Convention and Children’s Well-Being
The Convention offers a normative frame-
work to understand children’s well-being
(Bradshaw, Hoelscher, & Richardson, 2006) as
8 KOSHER, JIANG, BEN-ARIEH, AND HUEBNER
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it promotes a holistic view of child well-being,
giving equal weight to children’s civic, politi-
cal, social, economic, and cultural rights (Ben-
Arieh, 2008). In the Convention, rights are im-

plicitly understood as creating opportunities for
well-being (Ben-Arieh & Frønes, 2011). The
general principles of the Convention fit closely
with a variety of discussions on how to concep-
tualize child well-being (Bradshaw, Hoelscher,
& Richardson, 2007). The Convention estab-
lished an extensive legal framework of rights
across a broad spectrum of domains that outline
the conditions related to children’s well-being.
According to Edberg (2009), this framework
encompasses positive conditions, such as
safety, best interests of the child, education and
health care access, freedom of expression,
thought and assembly, and others that pertain to
negative conditions, such as discrimination, ex-
ploitation, violence, and trafficking, for overall
development.
Well-being is mentioned in the Convention sev-
eral times. Article 3, which focuses on the best
interests of the child, underscores that “States’
parties undertake to ensure the child such protec-
tion and care as is necessary for his or her well-
being . . .” The Convention identifies the physical,
mental, social, spiritual, and moral domains as the
primary areas of concern for overall well-being.
For example, Article 27 indicates that “States’
parties recognize the right of every child to a
standard of living adequate for the child’s physi-
cal, mental, spiritual, moral and social develop-
ment” (see also Articles 17 and 32).
Consistent with the adoption of the Convention,
increasing attention has been paid to discussions
of the meaning and measurement of child well-
being. In the next section, the definitions and

measurement of well-being are discussed, partic-
ularly in relation to the context of large-scale
national and international assessment systems.
Definitions and Large Scale Monitoring of
Child Well-Being
Well-being has been defined in many ways.
Dictionaries define well-being as a desirable
state of being happy, healthy, or prosperous.
However, well-being is also related to the ful-
fillment of desires, the balance of positive and
negative emotions, to living conditions, and so
on (Ben-Arieh & Frønes, 2011). In short, well-
being is generally operationalized as a broad
construct that encompasses objective and sub-
jective indicators.
From a children’s rights perspective, well-
being can be defined as the realization of chil-
dren’s rights and the fulfillment of the opportu-
nity for every child to be all she can be in the
light of her abilities, skills, and potential. The
degree to which this realization is achieved can
be measured in terms of positive child out-
comes, whereas negative outcomes and depri-
vation point to the denial of children’s rights
(Bradshaw et al., 2007). Most conceptualiza-
tions of child well-being involve multiple di-
mensions. One example is that of the Organiza-
tion for Economic and Cooperative
Development, which includes the following di-
mensions: material well-being, housing and en-
vironment, education, health and safety, risk
behaviors, and quality of school life (see Brad-

shaw et al., 2006). Huebner (1994) provides
another conceptualization, which includes the
five contexts of family, friends, school, self, and
living environment.
Children’s well-being is not conceptualized
as a static concept. It is considered to be dy-
namic in nature, and it is generally situated
within developmental and ecosystemic concep-
tual frameworks. Well-being has to be under-
stood in relation to individual preferences and
opportunities. As such, the same level of com-
modities and resources do not produce the same
level of well-being for all individuals (Ben-
Arieh & Frønes, 2011). Child well-being results
from the interplay of resources and risk factors
for a child, her family, friends, situation at
school, and the wider society. These factors are
constantly changing, and children, with their
evolving capacities, actively contribute to their
own well-being (Bradshaw et al., 2007). Chil-
dren’s movement through the life course im-
plies that their well-being (and capabilities) can
be continuously changing, especially during
times of key developmental transitions (e.g.,
adolescence). Such changes throughout the life
course require a set of indicators capable of
identifying important differences in children’s
well-being at various age levels and in various
contexts (Ben-Arieh & Frønes, 2011).
Recent years have brought a dramatic rise in
the number of efforts at the national and inter-
national levels to measure and monitor the well-
being and lives of children using statistical data
and indicators (Ben-Arieh, 2006). Although the

9SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY AND CHILDREN’S WELL-BEING
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use of statistical data and indicators specifically
to study the well-being of children is not new,
the child indicators movement really sprang to
life only during the last two decades of the 20th
century (Ben-Arieh, 2012; Bradshaw, Keung,
Rees, & Goswami, 2011). Today, the use of
child indicators is widely accepted and recog-
nized as an important tool to promote children’s
well-being and to shape social and political
change processes and policies (Ben-Arieh,
2000).
Indicators are generally constructed as pro-
files over a series of dimensions, or as indexes
combining a series of indices into one measure.
The indicators refer to a wide range of phenom-
ena including measures, signs, indices, and
symptoms, pointing to children’s present and
future developmental status. Indicators of well-
being cover a broad range of perspectives and

fields, ranging from measures of objective con-
ditions of children’s lives (e.g., material stan-
dards, community standards, and social capital)
to measures of children’s subjective experiences
life (e.g., life satisfaction, positive emotions;
Ben-Arieh & Frønes, 2011; Diener, 2000).
Research related to indicators of children’s
well-being is growing and reflects several im-
portant trends. These trends are inspired by the
framework established by the Convention as
well as developmental psychology, especially
the ecological model of development (Fer-
nandes, Mendes, Aurora, & Teixeira, 2012).
The five most important trends have been sum-
marized by Ben-Arieh (2000, 2006, 2008).
First, the child is a main unit of analysis. The
Convention conceptualizes the child as an inde-
pendent human being. Hence, the child’s per-
spective should be the main unit of analysis,
although others’ perspectives (e.g., parents,
teachers) are important in comprehensive child
well-being assessments. Second, well-being is
more than survival or the absence of pathology;
it includes positive indicators that reflect “thriv-
ing” or “optimal functioning” beyond a neutral
point. Thus, well-being includes more than neg-
ative outcomes in life; it also includes positive
outcomes. Third, early efforts to develop well-
being indicators emphasized children’s well be-
coming, that is, their subsequent achievement or
well-being whereas recent efforts focus also on
children’s current well-being. Fourth, well-
being is multidimensional. The Convention
highlighted the need to examine multiple do-

mains of children’s lives to be comprehensive.
However, summary indices can be useful to
facilitate comparisons of trends across different
demographic groups, localities and regions. Fi-
nally, children’s current subjective experiences
must be taken into account. The Convention
recognizes children’s right to be heard, concep-
tualizing children as important agents in assess-
ing their well-being and making decisions about
their lives.
The last point deserves particular attention.
One of the latest developments regarding as-
sessments of the dimensions of children’s well-
being is the introduction of the construct of
subjective well-being (SWB) by Diener (1984).
Over the last few decades, there has been a
growing interest among researchers on chil-
dren’s subjective perceptions of their well-
being (Bradshaw et al., 2007; Cummins & Lau,
2005; Fattore, Mason, & Watson, 2007). This
new trend was influenced by the children’s
rights notion, which calls for respect for chil-
dren as rights bearing persons whose opinions
should be heard and considered in decision
making concerning them. A central principle of
the Convention has been that children’s rights
monitoring should include the voices of the
children themselves, especially their judgments
of SWB. Children’s perceptions of the nature
and impact of life conditions can differ from
those of adults (e.g., parents, teachers), under-
scoring the notion that multiple perspectives
need to be taken into account (Ben-Arieh, Mc-
Donell, & Attar-Schwartz, 2009).

According to Diener (1984, 2000), SWB re-
fers to individuals’ cognitive evaluations of the
overall quality of their lives (i.e., global life
satisfaction) and with specific life domains (i.e.,
school satisfaction, family satisfaction) as well
as reports of affective well-being, reflecting the
frequency of various positive and negative emo-
tions experienced over time. Affective experi-
ences include the children’s reports of pleasant
emotions (joy, excitement), and negative emo-
tions (e.g., sadness, anger; Bradshaw et al.,
2011). In addition to Diener’s hedonic focus,
some scholars have argued for the inclusion of
eudamonic indicators of children’s well-being
that are empirically related to SWB, such as
purpose, gratitude, hope, optimism, and self-
efficacy (Furlong, You, Renshaw, Smith, &
O’Malley, in press; Keyes, 2009).
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Numerous large-scale approaches have been
proposed to conceptualize and measure the

well-being of children. A current, common
theme involves the notion that well-being mea-
sures should be multidimensional to reflect the
complexity of children’s lives (Bradshaw et al.,
2007; Huebner, 1994). Large-scale, multidi-
mensional indexes of children’s well-being, de-
signed for cross-national applications, have
been introduced in recent years. For example,
the Multi-National Project for Monitoring and
Measuring Children’s Well-Being (Ben-Arieh
et al., 2001) is a noteworthy, interdisciplinary
effort. The index encompasses 50 indicators of
five components and 13 subcomponents. The
components are: safety and physical status, per-
sonal life skills, civic life skills, children’s eco-
nomic resources, and children’s use of time.
Another index is the EU25 child well-being
index, which constitutes eight higher-order
clusters: material situation, housing, health,
subjective well-being, education, children’s so-
cial relationships, civic participation, and risk
and safety (Bradshaw et al., 2007). These ex-
amples are both consistent with the conceptual-
ization of children’s rights articulated in the
Convention, in which children’s rights to devel-
opment and survival are multidimensional and
include the physical, mental, social, spiritual,
and moral domains as the primary areas of
concern for children’s overall well-being.
What one can learn from the conceptualiza-
tion and associated indexes of children’s well-
being in the light of the notion of children’s
rights? How can this approach contribute to the
context of children’s schooling in general and
school psychology in particular? The following

sections will discuss the relevance of children’s
rights and children’s well-being to education in
general and to the field of school psychology in
particular.
Children’s Well-Being, Children’s Rights,
and Schooling
School and family are among the major en-
tities in children’s lives (Melton, Limber, &
Teague, 2000). A good education is considered
to be one of the most important aspects of
society, and it is one of the major goals of the
Convention (Scherer & Hart, 1999). Education
(and schooling) was one of the first rights
granted to children, as in the 18th and 19th
century, school became the major “work set-
ting” for children. At first, education was con-
ceived of as a tool for producing individuals
who would be useful to society (Hart & Pav-
lović, 1991). The educational culture has tradi-
tionally included harsh discipline practices, fre-
quently using fear and intimidation to control
children. For many years, children were also
denied opportunities for self-determination in
the school setting (Hart, 1987, 1991; Henriksen,
1982; Plumb, 1972; Takanishi, 1978). How-
ever, a dramatic change has occurred in many
places in such practices during the 20th century
as education began to be viewed as a right of
children and as a means to promote their well-
being rather than primarily as a means of soci-
etal control (Hemelsoet, 2012).
The Convention places a high value on edu-

cation. Article 28 states that all children have
the right to a free education. “States’ parties
recognize the right of the child to education, and
with a view to achieving this right progressively
and on the basis of equal opportunity.” This
article also states that discipline in schools
should respect children’s dignity, without the
use of violence.
Article 29 states that children’s education
should develop each child’s personality, talents
and abilities to the fullest. Education should
also encourage children to respect others’ hu-
man rights. It should also help them learn to live
peacefully and responsibly, protect the environ-
ment, and respect other people’s cultures.
The Convention not only prescribes chil-
dren’s right to education but also articulates
standards for the promotion and fulfillment of
well-being of children in the school context.
The standards include the aforementioned pro-
vision and protection rights as well as partici-
pation and self-determination rights. More spe-
cifically, children’s rights to schooling and
education must include the following: (a) pro-
vision rights—schools and education should be
easily and readily accessible to all children and
provide them with opportunities to meet basic
needs as well as fostering opportunities for
learning, development, health, and overall well-
being; (b) protection rights—schools and edu-
cation should be a protected haven for children,
free of physical, mental or any other danger;
and (c) participation rights—special attention is
required in regard to participation rights in the

education context, as it is characterized by a
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societal context where adult authority and
power is almost absolute (Smith, 2007).
Schools and the education system need to assure
a variety of participation and self-determination
rights, such as freedom of association, protec-
tion of privacy, freedom to express opinions,
and freedom of thought, conscience, and reli-
gion. Children, from a young age, should be
provided meaningful opportunities to partici-
pate in all aspects of school functioning (Covell,
2010; Melton, 1987).
The Convention provides relevant guidelines
to develop and apply a child rights approach to
professional work in education (Hart & Pav-
lović, 1991). School professionals have the pri-
mary responsibility to promote the realization
of children’s rights, including children’s well-
being. School psychologists are in a unique

position to do so. Children’s well-being is ar-
guably a central responsibility of the school
community, everywhere in the world (Nod-
dings, 2003).
Beyond general implications for children’s
schooling, the Convention also yields implica-
tions for school professionals, such a school
psychologists. We address these implications
next.
School Psychologists’ Roles and Functions
School psychologists provide a number of
services to children in schools, including a va-
riety of assessment and intervention functions at
the individual, group, and systems levels. The
roles and functions of school psychologists
around the world are evolving, having been
shaped by many forces throughout the history of
the profession (Fagan, & Wise, 2007; Oakland
& Jimerson, 2007). Although most school psy-
chologists’ roles and functions are multifaceted,
extending beyond assessment, we focus on the
assessment role herein, recognizing that high
quality assessment data provide the foundation
for other school psychologist roles (e.g., con-
sultation, intervention, advocacy).
For many years, the assessment (and inter-
vention) practices of school psychologists were
mainly based on the medical model of human
functioning, which led to a focus on identifica-
tion and treatment of pathology within individ-
ual children, especially children with special
needs (Sheridan & Gutkin, 2000). Such a nar-

row focus has been inconsistent with the more
holistic conceptualization of well-being embed-
ded within the Convention.
Alternatives to this deficit-based perspective
have been articulated by many authors in school
psychology (e.g., Rhee, Furlong, Turner, & Ha-
rari, 2001; Terjesen, Jacofsky, Froh, & DiGi-
useppe, 2004). Emerging developments in the
field of psychology have included positive psy-
chology (Gilman & Huebner, 2003; Seligman &
Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), which incorporates at-
tention to SWB, personal strengths, and envi-
ronmental assets in conducting assessments, in-
terventions, and prevention services for all
children (Jimerson, Sharkey, Nyborg, & Fur-
long, 2004).
The breadth and depth of school psycholo-
gists’ roles in general and assessment practices
in particular have recently broadened in scope
in many places, reflecting the shift in the con-
ceptualization of children’s well-being as more
than the absence of psychopathological symp-
toms (Meyers & Meyers, 2003; Farrell,
Jimerson, & Oakland, 2007; Suldo & Shaffer,
2008). The medical model is being expanded to
include considerations of the larger systems that
influence children’s functioning (Sheridan &
Gutkin, 2000) as well as positive individual
assets (Furlong et al., in press). There is some
evidence that the dominant school psychology
paradigm for service delivery in some areas is
moving from a relatively exclusive emphasis on
assessing and remediating the “problems” of

individual children with special needs to a rel-
atively greater emphasis on prevention and the
promotion of positive development and well-
being in all children (Farrell et al., 2007; McIn-
tosh, Martinez, Ty, & McClain, 2013). Descrip-
tions of evolving practices in multiple nations
reflecting this change can be found in Furlong,
Gilman, and Huebner (in press).
Such changes in practice rest on the recogni-
tion that school psychologists are in a unique
position in the ecology of children, intersecting
with children and most key environmental sys-
tems, such as family school and community-
school systems (Nastasi & Naser, in press;
Sheridan & Gutkin, 2000). Such changes are
also consistent with calls in school psychology
for the implementation of population-based ser-
vices (Doll & Cummings, 2008), response-to-
intervention procedures (Sugai, Horner, &
Gresham, 2002), and holistic school-based
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mental health approaches (Leschied, Flett, &
Saklofske, 2012) in schools.
We believe that greater attention to a chil-
dren’s rights agenda offers many opportunities
for schools psychologists. In the following sec-
tion, we address the implications of children’s
rights agenda for school psychological services
as a whole.
Implications of Children’s Rights for
School Psychology
The universal recognition of the concept and
value of children’s rights has influenced school
psychology. School psychologists have made
various commitments to the Convention, such
as those articulated in various position state-
ments of their professional organizations. The
new conceptualization of children’s rights has
been endorsed internationally by school psy-
chology communities who are continually ex-
amining ways that school psychology may fur-
ther contribute to the implementation of the
Convention goals (Hart & Prasse, 1991; McMa-
hon, 1993).
School psychologists’ particular expertise
positions them well to operationalize the Con-
vention in their professional practice in several
ways (NASP, 2012). Such arguments have also
been articulated via the International School
Psychology Association (ISPA) and in the
Child Rights Education for Professionals pro-
gram (CRED-PRO; 2010).

First, the Convention provides useful guide-
lines for the professional practice of school psy-
chology. The Convention’s core purpose is to
secure and advance the health, well-being, ed-
ucation, and safety of children. This purpose is
consistent with the guiding principles of the
school psychology community to deliver a com-
prehensive articulated array of services that pro-
motes the well-being of children by ensuring
opportunities to attain optimal learning, devel-
opment, and mental health. School psycholo-
gists are generally prepared to provide this
range of services (e.g., assessment, consulta-
tion, intervention) in multiple settings, with ser-
vices directed at individuals (e.g., students, par-
ents, educators) and systems (family,
classroom, schools, community organizations).
A children’s rights agenda should be central to
school psychologists’ work in each of these
contexts, and school psychologists should eval-
uate their services accordingly (NASP, 2012).
Second, the Convention calls for systems-
level advocacy. From its inception, school psy-
chology has held the implicit assumption that a
core value of the profession involves serving as
advocates to promote the best interests of chil-
dren through effective educational and mental
health services (e.g., Catterall & Hinds, 1972;
Hart, 1991; Hyman & Schreiber, 1974, 1975,
1977; Mearig, 1974). School psychologists act
as advocates for children by virtue of their po-
sitions within schools and their ethical obliga-
tions (McMahon, 1993).

Kahn, Kammerman, and McGowan (1973)
defined child advocacy as interventions on be-
half of children in relation to those services and
institutions that influence their lives. The func-
tion of child advocates is to examine the oper-
ation of various factors that influence the lives
of children and to promote and provide inter-
ventions based on children’s needs and rights.
To serve as advocates, school psychologists
must understand and identify how the rights of
children can be used positively to influence
services and policies within schools and related
environmental systems (e.g., families, neigh-
borhoods, other child-serving agencies) to en-
sure children’s well-being. They have the re-
sponsibility to examine services in these
settings and facilitate changes to policies and
procedures that ensure the protection and pro-
motion of children’s rights (NASP, 2012).
At the public policy level, school psycholo-
gists can act as a critical link in translating
research into policy and practice at local, na-
tional, and international levels. Governments,
through both action and inaction, contribute to
the protection or disregard for children’s rights.
Instead of focusing only on ameliorating viola-
tions of children’s rights, school psychologists,
through individual and collective advocacy, can
help to promote and protect children’s rights
and thereby facilitate the optimal development,
well-being, learning, and safety of all children.
Third, school psychologists who embrace a
children’s right approach must ensure that the

child is viewed as the primary client in the
service delivery system (Kahn et al., 1973).
This approach means viewing the child as the
client whose well-being must be advanced
through the delivery of professional services
(APA, 2002, 2010; NASP, 2010). In this man-
T
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of
it
s

al
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pu
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.
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te
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ner, the interests of the child remain foremost
(McMahon, 1993). Understanding and adhering
to this principle is crucial, especially when con-
flicts of interest arise in the organization with its
other clients (e.g., parents, teachers, commu-
nity).
Fourth, the notion of children’s rights has
also brought increasing attention to children’s
right to participation. School psychologists need
to continue to recognize the importance of lis-
tening to “children’s voices” to facilitate child
participation (see Lansdown et al., in press). As
articulated further below, the increasing devel-

opment and use of empirically validated mea-
sures of the subjective experiences and well-
being of children should especially contribute to
such efforts.
In summary, a children’s rights-based ap-
proach provides a conceptual framework as well
as specific strategies and opportunities for
school psychologists to apply in their work
(ISPA & CRED-PRO, 2010). School psycholo-
gists must respect and protect children’s rights
at all levels of practice, from working with
individual children to working with the broader
systems in children’s lives to influence public
policy. Professional organizations and school
psychologists and associated need to work to-
gether, as well as collaborate with other school
and nonschool professionals, to protect and ad-
vance children’s rights and promote well-being
(ISPA & CRED-PRO, 2010). Nastasi and Naser
(in press) provide a useful framework clarifying
the intersection of children’s rights, as articu-
lated in the Convention, and school psychology
training and practices standards and ethics
codes.
Taken together, the development of chil-
dren’s rights agenda and a science of children’s
well-being have important implications for the
roles of school psychologists in general. How-
ever, the advances in each area suggest impor-
tant implications for the specific roles and func-
tions of school psychologists, including their
assessment roles. We turn to these implications
for school psychologists’ assessment role in the
next section.

Implications of Children’s Well-Being for
School Psychologists’ Assessment Practices
The Convention requires that all nations eval-
uate the effectiveness of the political and legal
structures created to promote Convention re-
quirements for children. Such evaluations must
take into account the determination of the im-
pact of those structures and policies on the
well-being of children. The evaluations should
involve monitoring the objective conditions of
children’s lives, as well as their subjective per-
ceptions of their well-being. School psycholo-
gists can serve an important advocacy role in
promoting respect for and realization of chil-
dren’s well-being (objective and subjective
well-being), taking advantage of their unique
professional expertise and position within chil-
dren’s key environments to help develop and
implement individual, group, and school sys-
tem-wide child well-being assessments as ex-
tensions of larger-scale monitoring efforts.
Given the children’s rights movement and the
emergence of a science of well-being (Diener,
2000) and positive psychology (Gilman &
Huebner, 2003; Jimerson et al., 2004), some
school psychologists appear to be moving to-
ward a more assets-based, well-being focused
orientation (Furlong, Gilman, & Huebner, in
press; Huebner & Hills, 2011; Meyers, Roach,
& Meyers, 2009). This orientation provides op-
portunities for school psychologists, as they ad-
dress not only academic outcomes and class-

room behavior, but also broader objective and
subjective experiences of children’s lives (Gil-
man & Huebner, 2003).
The Finnish research team of Randolph, Kan-
gas, and Ruokamo (2009) developed a holistic
model of well-being, which can incorporate ob-
jective and subjective indicators of school-age
children’s well-being that should be useful to
guide school-based assessment practices at the
individual or systems levels. Their model in-
cludes four levels in a hierarchy ranging from
global to more specific indicators. The highest
level represents an unmeasured overall quality
of life construct. The second highest level in-
corporates Diener’s (1984) three lower-order,
measurable components of SWB: positive emo-
tions, negative emotions, and global life satis-
faction, all of which can be measured through
self-reports. It should be noted that global life
satisfaction measures are comprised exclusively
of items that are domain-free (e.g., My life is
going well) versus domain-dependent (My
school life is going well). This global, self-
report approach allows children to give voice to
their life satisfaction judgments based on their
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own unique criteria and standards. This ap-
proach contrasts with an alternative approach
wherein individuals’ life satisfaction judgments
comprise a summation of responses to a variety
of domain-specific items, which reflect the con-
texts and standards determined by others (e.g.,
the research “experts” who developed the mea-
sure). The third level involves measurable, con-
textualized judgments of satisfaction for major,
specific life domains, such as family, friends,
and school. Thus, given the distinction between
global and domain-based measures of satisfac-
tion, a child may report high global life satis-
faction despite being dissatisfied with experi-
ences in a specific domain, such as school (or
low global life satisfaction despite being satis-
fied with school experiences). The fourth level
includes the empirically validated subjective
and objective conditions associated with each
domain. This level offers the opportunity to link
students’ levels of satisfaction with specific do-
mains and relevant research-based subjective
and objective variables that contribute to differ-
ences in the students’ satisfaction levels. Objec-
tive variables might include such variables,
such as parental socioeconomic status, access to
medical services, and recreational opportuni-
ties. For a specific example of consideration of
both subjective and objective variables, possible
determinants of a student’s (or students’) satis-

faction with peers should include assessments
of the students’ family structure and relation-
ships, socioeconomic status, neighborhood
characteristics, peer interpersonal trust levels,
social skills, victimization experiences, and so-
cial self-efficacy (Huebner, Hills, & Jiang,
2013). An empirically supported list of key
variables could also be generated for satisfac-
tion with family, school, community, and other
key domains.
Modifications of the Randolph et al. (2009)
model could also prove useful depending upon
the purposes of the particular assessment situa-
tions. For example, the self-domain of the
model could be divided further and organized
according to the five domains of the Conven-
tion: physical, mental, spiritual, moral, and so-
cial development. Alternatively, the self-
domain could incorporate the components of
the aforementioned assets model developed by
Furlong et al. (in press).
School psychologists are particularly suited
to assess children’s well-being at the individual,
group, and school levels. They receive substan-
tial training in child assessment procedures in
general. Perhaps the newest, relevant instru-
ments of interest to them would be SWB mea-
sures, particularly measures of global and do-
main-specific life satisfaction. Such measures
have been reviewed extensively elsewhere
(Huebner & Hills, 2013; Proctor, Linley, &
Maltby, 2009). Several SWB measures are,
brief, free, and readily accessible. Examples

include Personal Well-being Index-School
Children Version (Cummins & Lau, 2005), Stu-
dents’ Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner, 1991),
Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction
Scale (Huebner, 1994), and Brief Multidimen-
sional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (Selig-
man, Huebner, & Valois, 2003). Examples of
the usefulness of life satisfaction measures can
be found for individuals (Huebner, Gilman, &
Suldo, 2007), groups (Farrell, Valois, Meyer, &
Tidwell, 2003), schools (Gilman & Handwerk,
2003), and national and international surveys
(Bradshaw et al., 2011; Tomyn, Norrish, &
Cummins, 2013).
Although more research is needed, various
SWB measures have demonstrated acceptable
reliability and validity for a variety of purposes
(Casas, Gonzales, & Navarro, 2014; Huebner &
Hills, 2013; Proctor, Linley, & Maltby, 2009).
The inclusion of SWB measure should provide
useful additional information that goes beyond
traditional assessment systems, incorporating
the voices of children as encouraged by the
Convention. For example, reports of students’
global and school satisfaction and associated
conditions can help identify overall well-being
and SWB factors that schools can influence
ranging from overarching school policies (e.g.,
school discipline policy) to everyday school
activities (e.g., student–teacher interactions,
parent–school interactions). Thus, monitoring
students’ well-being can inform school profes-
sionals about the impact of changes in various
policies, practices, and school experiences. The
use of comprehensive assessment systems,

based on models such as that of Randolph et al.
(2009), should also reveal which particular con-
ditions are more or less important in how chil-
dren experience their lives. For example, such
assessments may reveal important data on the
group level, such as that positive teacher inter-
actions are on the average more important than
positive peer relations for students’ school sat-
T
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s
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isfaction, even among middle school students
(Jiang, Huebner, & Siddall, in press). For an-
other example, such assessments may yield im-
portant data on the individual level, such as that
a change in parent occupational status and as-
sociated family relocation (e.g., job promotion
with higher salary) may improve the life satis-
faction of one child but not another.
Facilitating the articulation of students’
“voices,” SWB data can be collected rou-
tinely to monitor the effects of academic,

behavioral, and medical interventions applied
across different levels of school service de-
livery, such as the three-tier model for school-
based service delivery (Doll & Cummings,
2008). Examples of the use of SWB assess-
ments at all three levels can be found in
Huebner, Hills, and Jiang (2013). Their rec-
ommendations assume that assessments of the
impact of interventions or policies should in-
clude students’ positive SWB as well as tar-
geted behavioral and academic outcomes
given that numerous studies have demon-
strated the incremental validity of positive
measures of well-being in relation to tradi-
tional measures of psychological symptoms in
understanding children’s school functioning
and well-being (Antaramian, Huebner, Hills,
& Valois, 2010; Lewis, Huebner, Reschly, &
Valois, 2009; Suldo & Shaffer, 2008) as well
as school professionals’ expectations (Dono-
van & Nickerson, 2007; Wellborn, Huebner,
& Hills, 2012). Thus, a program or policy that
improves child functioning (e.g., decreases
behavior problems), but is perceived to re-
duce SWB or maintain low SWB, would be
distinguishable from one that improves func-
tioning and SWB.
To recapitulate, school psychologists are in
a unique position to contribute to the concep-
tualization, development and, implementation
of developmentally appropriate children’s
well-being assessment systems. A compre-
hensive child well-being assessment system
should include collection of various aspects
of well-being data, both negative and posi-

tive, using objective sources (e.g., parent and
teacher judgments, school records) and asso-
ciated conditions (e.g., discipline referrals,
grades) that are relevant to the particular as-
sessment context, as well as SWB data (Die-
ner, 2000; Huebner, Hills, Siddall, & Gilman,
in press). The monitoring plan should involve
collection of systematic, ongoing data across
multiple time points to fully understand child
outcomes. In this manner, school psycholo-
gists’ assessment models and associated tech-
niques should help fulfill the Convention’s
notion of holistic assessments (e.g., Article
29) that reflect a “positive ideology of the
child that has been sorely needed throughout
the world to guide related care, treatment, and
aspirations” (Hart & Hart, in press, p. 32).
Summary
The profession of school psychology is un-
dergoing important changes, influenced by
larger social, scientific, and political trends.
These trends include the emergence of a chil-
dren’s rights agenda and the development of a
science of children’s well-being measure-
ment. We have claimed that these changes can
be best addressed by the framework of the
children’s rights agenda, which is best ex-
pressed in the Convention and which calls for
the ongoing monitoring and promotion of
children’s well-being. The synergy between a
rights-based agenda and associated child
well-being assessment methodology can pro-
vide the many opportunities for school psy-

chology that have been discussed in this arti-
cle.
The Convention sets standards for chil-
dren’s well-being in the education context. It
constitutes a relevant framework for safe-
guarding and promoting their well-being in
schools. Knowledge of the Convention can
help school communities to establish rights-
respecting goals and experiences to monitor
(and promote) children’s well-being. Along
with the establishment of such goals and prac-
tices, children’s overall well-being, including
their subjective well-being, should be moni-
tored to determine the effects of such goals
and experiences as perceived by the children
themselves. Although children’s SWB reports
will not reveal directly whether children’s
rights’ policies and practices are being imple-
mented with fidelity, SWB reports should
provide a window into the experiential impact
of the conditions of their lives, giving voice to
unique their satisfactions and concerns.
School psychologists are ideally situated to
contribute to such efforts.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718189920494435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15718189920494435
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/092755607X181739
http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/092755607X181739
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1978.tb01028.x
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9970-y
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9970-y
http://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Implementation_Handb
ook_for_the_Convention_on_the_Rights_of_the_Child_Part_1_
of_3.pdf
of_3.pdf
of_3.pdf
of_3.pdf

of_3.pdf
of_3.pdf
of_3.pdf
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12187-011-9133-3
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12187-011-9133-3Advances in
Children’s Rights and Children’s Well-Being Measurement:
Implications ...The Convention and Children’s Well-
BeingDefinitions and Large Scale Monitoring of Child Well-
BeingChildren’s Well-Being, Children’s Rights, and
SchoolingSchool Psychologists’ Roles and
FunctionsImplications of Children’s Rights for School
PsychologyImplications of Children’s Well-Being for School
Psychologists’ Assessment PracticesSummaryReferences
Francisco Ardon
Week 3 discussion question one
10-4-2018In this discussion, I have been asked to take the role
of a school psychologist in a public middle school. The case in
which I was presented with is a young student by the name of
Jane Smith. According to Janes evaluation, it indicated that
Jane has taken the MMPI-A or names the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory-Adolescents. There are two versions of
this test, the first on the MMPI-2 was created to measure
personality traits from ages 18 and over, however, the MMPI-A
was created in 1992 to measure the personality traits of young
children from ages (14-18). The MMPI-A test for adolescents
this test is to measure their emotions, behavior attitudes.
“MMPI-A is designed to evaluate the thoughts, emotions,
attitudes, and behavioral traits that comprise personality. The
results of the test reflect an adolescent's personality strengths

and weaknesses and may identify certain disturbances of
personality (psychopathologies) or mental deficits caused by
neurological problems” (ECH, 2018). According to the
assessment it indicated that Jane was being very cooperative
during the test however it also indicated that Jane is showing
levels of explosive behavior, school Maladjustment, and
adolescent problems. As a treatment what I would recommend
is that first we start Jane on a one on one discussion asking her
a serious of questions that would first answer why she is having
explosive behavior, it could be an issue at school or at home,
next we would address the issue of school why is she failing
and what support may we offer that will better enhance her
skill. As a school psychologist it a very important that Jane gets
the help she needs because, in an article called, The Critical
Role of School Psychologist in The School Mental Health
Movement, it states, “Unfortunately only a small percentage of
students experiencing mental problems are identified and
received treatment by “front-keepers.” Such as educators,
school psychologist, mental health clinicians or pediatricians.
(Melissa Dvorsky, Pg. 245)”. However, there is one problem the
assessment does not give janes cultural back grown because we
are unknowing of her cultural background this will affect the
outcome of the test and will be inaccurate. However, there is
another test that could be administered by Janes parents and that
is called the Columbia Impairment Scale (C.I.S) Youth Version.
According to the test it states, “This will help us determine the
area or areas in which you need to work on, and the progress
that you make in these areas. It also will give us information
that will assist us in making changes in your treatment plan to
better meet your needs” (C.I.S. Youth Version). I think an
ethical issue is that the MMPI-A is an assessment of Janes
issues, we cannot assume right off the back that just because the
test indicates that Jane has depression or anxiety we are not
informed exactly were on the scales of the severity of these
issues. Also, we must make certain that in conducting these
exams that we possess all of the information. In better

understanding jane and to help her I must first determine what
kind of environment she is in and ask myself this question does
it pose any danger. Under the child actors of wellbeing Janes
protection rights state, “the right to be protected from neglect,
abuse, exploration, violence, cruel and degrading treatment,
discrimination, invasion of privacy, exploitation, hazardous
work and armed conflict” (UNICEF.2007. Pg.8). what catches
my attention is that because Jane had commented that she is
depressed at school he is starting to have suicidal thoughts,
under my ethical oath I cannot allow Jane to leave until she is
evaluated properly even if she states that her suicidal thoughts
are not being acted upon, without treatment Jane puts herself in
great risk of her issues progressing.
References:
Academic Journals
Kosher, H., Jiang, X., Ben-Arieh, A., & Huebner, E. S. (2014).
Advances in children’s rights and children’s well-being
measurement: Implications for school psychologists. School
Psychology Quarterly, 29(1), 7-20. Retrieved from
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-
library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=c06b7
8e7-4706-41c4-9a84-7f517f73e8cd%40pdc-v-sessmgr02
Splett, J. W., Fowler, J., Weist, M. D., McDaniel, H., &
Dvorsky, M. (2013). The critical role of school psychology in
the school mental health movement. Psychology in the Schools,
50(3), 245-258. Retrieved from
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-
library.ashford.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=c06b7
8e7-4706-41c4-9a84-7f517f73e8cd%40pdc-v-sessmgr02
Text book: Cloninger, S. (2013). Theories of personality:
Understanding persons. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Chapters 10-13. Retrieved from
https://content.ashford.edu/books/Cloninger.7923.17.1

Websites:
Jane Framingham, Ph.D. (2016). Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory (MMPI). Retrieved from
https://psychcentral.com/lib/minnesota-multiphasic-personality-
inventory-mmpi/
Encyclopedia for children health. (2018). MMPI-A. Minnesota
Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Retrieved from.
http://www.healthofchildren.com/M/Minnesota-Multiphasic-
Personality-Inventory.html
THE COLUMBIA IMPAIMENT SCALE (C.I.S.) YOUTH
VERSION INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUTH. Retrieved from
https://www.hrcec.org/images/PDF/CIS-Y.pdf
Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 50(3), 2013 C© 2013 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc.
View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pits
DOI: 10.1002/pits.21677
THE CRITICAL ROLE OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY IN THE
SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH
MOVEMENT
JONI WILLIAMS SPLETT, JOHNATHAN FOWLER, MARK D.
WEIST, AND HEATHER MCDANIEL

MELISSA DVORSKY
Virginia Commonwealth University
School mental health (SMH) programs are gaining momentum
and, when done well, are associated
with improved academic and social–emotional outcomes.
Professionals from several education
and mental health disciplines have sound training and
experiences needed to play a critical role
in delivering quality SMH services. School psychologists,
specifically, are in a key position to
advance SMH programs and services. Studies have documented
that school psychologists desire
more prominent roles in the growth and improvement of SMH,
and current practice models from
national organizations encourage such enhanced involvement.
This article identifies the roles of
school psychologists across a three-tiered continuum of SMH
practice and offers an analysis of
current training and professional development opportunities
aimed at such role enhancement. We
provide a justification for the role of school psychologists in
SMH, describe a framework for
school psychologists in the SMH delivery system, discuss
barriers to and enablers of this role for
school psychologists, and conclude with recommendations for
training and policy. C© 2013 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc.
Although mental health challenges experienced early in
childhood tend to be stable and pre-
dictive of negative outcomes later in youth, early prevention
and intervention has the potential to
alter this negative trajectory (Hill, Lochman, Coie, Greenberg,

& Conduct Problems Prevention Re-
search Group [CPPRG], 2004; Lochman & CPPRG, 1995).
Unfortunately, only a small percentage
of students experiencing mental health problems are identified
and receive treatment by “frontline
gate-keepers,” such as educators, school psychologists, mental
health clinicians, or pediatricians
(Briggs-Gowan, Horwitz, Schwab-Stone, Leventhal, & Leaf,
2000). In fact, only approximately
half of children in need of mental health services actually
receive help (Merikangas et al., 2010).
In response to this need, school mental health (SMH) programs
have progressively expanded over
the past several decades (Foster, Rollefson, Doksum, Noonan, &
Robinson, 2005; Weist & Murray,
2007). The expansion of SMH programs relates to a range of
positive outcomes, such as enhanced
access to early intervention, improved academic performance,
decreased stigma, and reduced emo-
tional and behavioral disorders (e.g., see Hoagwood,
Kratochwill, Kerker, & Olin, 2005; Hussey &
Guo, 2003).
As SMH programs are increasingly prominent in efforts to
bridge the gap between unmet youth
mental health needs and effective services, SMH workforce
development will be a key factor in
promoting success for students (Hoge et al., 2005). Several
professionals, such as school counselors,
school psychologists, school social workers, school nurses, and
special education teachers, play a
critical role in delivering SMH services (Mellin, Anderson-
Butcher, & Bronstein, 2011). Generally,
each of these professionals has the sound training and
experiences needed to deliver quality SMH
services and work collaboratively across disciplines (Ball,

Anderson-Butcher, Mellin, & Green,
2010). Working collaboratively is important because it is clear
that not one discipline can individually
address the multifaceted mental health barriers to student
learning. Although the remainder of this
article focuses on the role of school psychologists in SMH, it is
important to remember that more
Correspondence to: Joni Williams Splett, University of South
Carolina, Department of Psychology, 1512
Pendleton St., Columbia, SC 29202. E-mail: [email protected]
245
246 Splett et al.
effectively meeting the mental health needs of all youth will
require the competency and collaboration
of all mental health and education professionals (Flaherty et al.,
1998).
School psychologists are in a key position to advance SMH and
desire this involvement (Curtis,
Hunley, Walker, & Baker, 1999; Fagan & Wise, 2007), but
research suggests that school psychol-
ogists have not been able to assume this role to the degree
promoted or desired (Curtis, Grier, &
Hunley, 2003; Friedrich, 2010). The purpose of this article is to
identify the roles of school psy-
chologists across a continuum of SMH practice and to offer an
analysis of current training and
professional development opportunities. In the following
section, we provide justification for school
psychologists’ enhanced role in SMH, within a public health
framework for prevention and inter-

vention. We then discuss barriers to and enablers of this role for
school psychologists and conclude
with actionable recommendations for training and practice.
SMH AND SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY
Similar to other SMH professionals, school psychologists
possess a unique blend of knowledge
regarding multiple factors influencing SMH programs and
services, including developmental risk
factors, the impact of behavior and mental health on learning
and life skill development, instruc-
tional design, organization and operation of schools, and
evidence-based strategies for promoting
mental health and wellness (see National Association of School
Psychologists [NASP], 2010a).
Additionally, literature and policy documents from the NASP
(2010a, 2010b, 2010c) encourage and
delineate a role for school psychologists in SMH (e.g., see
Sheridan & Gutkin, 2000). For example,
Figure 1 illustrates the NASP Model for Comprehensive and
Integrated School Psychological Ser-
vices, which delineates services that might typically be
provided by school psychologists, including
“interventions and mental health services to develop social and
life skills” (NASP, 2010a, p. 2;
Ysseldyke et al., 2006). Along with the NASP standards for
graduate training and credentialing,
these policy documents indicate not only that practicing school
psychologists are expected to pro-
vide mental health services to children, families, and schools,
but also that quality training that
meets professional standards should be provided to them at pre-
and in-service levels (NASP, 2010b,
2010c).

Unfortunately, however, this historically has not been the case;
despite a desire to offer expanded
services, school psychologists have traditionally been limited to
heavy psychological assessment
caseloads consuming more than 50% of their work (Hosp &
Reschly, 2002; Reschly, 2000). But
some evidence suggests that school psychologists may be
expanding their role and providing more
mental health services. In a recent survey of school
psychologists, Friedrich (2010) reported that
approximately 50% of their work week involved mental health
services, such as consultation with
school staff and problem-solving teams, social–emotional–
behavioral assessment, and various forms
of counseling. To further promote this trend, we delineate an
expanded role school psychologists
could have in providing a continuum of SMH prevention and
intervention in the following section.
By identifying the role of school psychologists in this manner,
we hope to raise awareness of what
mental health services school psychologists could be providing
within the field of school psychology
and among administrators, teachers, other mental health
providers, families, and graduate trainers.
SMH Services Provided by School Psychologists
The fields of school psychology and education, in general, are
increasingly adopting tiered
models of learning; behavioral and mental health services and
supports, including School-Wide
Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS; Horner, Sugai, &
Anderson, 2010); Response to Intervention
(RTI; National Center on Response to Intervention, 2010); and
the Interconnected Systems Frame-
work, which bridges SMH practices and SWPBS (Barrett, Eber,

& Weist, 2009). These models
Psychology in the Schools DOI: 10.1002/pits
School Psychology in School Mental Health 247
FIGURE 1. National Association of School Psychologists’
Model for Comprehensive and Integrated School Psychological
Services. (Reprinted from Model for Comprehensive and
Integrated School Psychological Services, NASP Practice Model
Overview [Brochure], by National Association of School
Psychologists, 2010, Bethesda, MD: National Association of
School Psychologists. Retrieved from
http://www.nasponline.org/standards/practice-
model/Practice_Model_Brochure.pdf.
Reprinted with permission.)
are based on a public health approach and promote a continuum
of support, including school-wide
prevention, early intervention, and more intense treatment
(Gordon, 1983). Given the overwhelming
predominance of tiered models in the field, we have
conceptualized the role of school psychologists
in providing mental health services within and across this
framework.
Framework. The public health, tiered model includes prevention
and intervention services
across three tiers that are commonly called universal, selective,
and indicated (Gordon, 1983;
O’Connell, Boat & Warner, 2009). As this model has been
applied widely in educational settings,
the terminology has been modified, resulting in multiple names
for each tier across fields. For

example, SWPBS and RTI refer to the three tiers as primary,
secondary, and tertiary, or Tier 1, Tier
2, and Tier 3 (Horner et al., 2010; National Center on Response
to Intervention, 2010). Although
the conceptual difference among terminologies is minimal, the
inconsistencies across fields have
created unnecessary confusion and should be resolved.
In the public health model, all students have access to universal
services and practices, and
the majority of students (e.g., 80%) will only need this level of
support. However, some students
248 Splett et al.
FIGURE 2. The mental health services that school psychologists
and other school mental health professionals could provide
within and across tiers.
demonstrating emerging difficulties will need selective supports
and interventions (e.g., about 15%),
whereas an even smaller percentage of students will need
indicated treatments (e.g., about 5%; Horner
et al., 2010; O’Connell et al., 2009). Commonly, services across
these three tiers are provided through
a variety of school teams, composed of administrators, teachers,
SMH professionals, students,
and/or families (Markle, Splett, Maras, & Weston, in press). For
example, schools implementing
SWPBS and/or RTI may have a school leadership team in
charge of universal prevention efforts
(Yergat, 2011); intervention, student support, and/or teacher

assistance teams at the selective level
(Hawken, Adolphson, Macleod, & Schumann, 2009); and
multidisciplinary special education teams,
wraparound teams, and/or interagency teams at the indicated
level (Eber, Sugai, Smith & Scott, 2002;
Freeman et al., 2006; Turnbull et al., 2002). The mental health
services that school psychologists,
as well as other SMH professionals and school teams, could
provide are delineated in Figure 2.
School Psychologists and Three-Tiered, Mental Health Services.
As illustrated in the bottom box
of Figure 2, school psychologists, in collaboration with other
school and mental health professionals
are involved in planning, implementing, and evaluating school-
wide prevention efforts at the univer-
sal level. They are critical members of their school’s Tier 1
team, as they possess unique knowledge
of best practice efforts to prevent mental health concerns,
program planning and evaluation, and data-
based decision making (NASP, 2010a; Splett & Maras, 2011).
At the selective level, as indicated in
the middle box of Figure 2, school psychologists have the
knowledge and experience to be integrally
involved in the screening process, intervention development and
delivery, teacher and team consulta-
tion to support intervention implementation, and progress
monitoring (Gresham, 2008; Hawken et al.,
2009; Weist, Rubin, Moore, Adelsheim, & Wrobel, 2007).
Finally, at the indicated level (top box of
Figure 2), school psychologists’ knowledge and skills in
assessment, intervention, consultation, and

School Psychology in School Mental Health 249
collaboration position them to be highly qualified and needed in
roles delivering interventions, as
well as consulting, collaborating, and communicating with
families and other school and community
professionals (Hoagwood & Johnson, 2003; Weist, 2003). In the
following section, factors that may
facilitate or hinder the ability of school psychologists to take on
an expanded role, such as the one
described in Figure 2, are addressed.
BARRIERS TO AND ENABLERS OF BEST PRACTICES
Although discussion of ideal roles and responsibilities of school
psychologists in the provision
of SMH services is an important exercise, equally crucial is the
exploration of factors that may serve
as barriers to or enablers of such responsibilities. Several
studies have surveyed school psychologists
regarding their actual and desired duties, as well as their
perceptions of what assists or hinders their
active involvement in SMH (Bramlett, Murphy, Johnson,
Wallingsford, & Hall, 2002; Friedrich,
2010; Hosp & Reschly, 2002; Noltemeyer & McLaughlin, 2011;
Suldo, Friedrich, & Michalowski.
2010). Some of the facilitating and obstructing factors cited
across these sources include time
constraints, administrative support, pre-service training and
supervision, professional development,
cultural awareness, and the frequency and type of referrals
made for services.
Time and Personal Prioritization

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