School Psychology International

School psychology and children’s rights have great potential, well beyond what has been realized, for advancing the best interests of children, their communities, and societies. A child rights approach infused into school psychology can significantly contribute to the fulfillment of this potential. To respect and illuminate these factors and possibilities, a brief history of children’s rights is presented, its major components as embodied in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and their relevance for education and the school community are clarified, and the opportunities for school psychology to champion and deeply integrate children’s rights in policy and practice are explored. Employing this base, a proposal is made for a new social contract between school psychology and those it serves which moves beyond reactive problem oriented interventions to give primacy to proactive promotion of the well-being and full holistic development of the child, employing a prospective human development models emphasizing progressive achievement of self-stewardship for all children.

Together, the UN Convention on Rights of the Child and the USA’s National Association of School Psychologists’ (NASP) Principles for Professional Ethics (2010a) serve as aspirational documents that place a child’s right to healthy development as the ultimate priority, regardless of the child’s circumstances. This article outlines how school psychologists can assess and support progress towards the aspiration that children have equitable access to services that promote healthy development regardless of parental limitations.

The United Nations (1989) Convention on the Rights of the Child was designed to promote and protect the survival, development, and well-being of children, thus extending human rights to individuals from birth to age 18. This article examines the consistency of the Articles of the Convention with the professional standards for school psychology, as articulated by the major organizations representing the profession in the USA––American Psychological Association, International School Psychology Association, and National Association of School Psychologists. Although the standards for ethics, practice, and training of these organizations are generally consistent with the UN Convention, the standards lack the specificity provided by the Convention’s 54 Articles. To facilitate the application of child rights’ principles in school psychology practice, we propose a model for integrating the professional standards with the Articles of the Convention. In addition, we describe a curriculum for training of school psychologists, developed through a partnership of several organizations, which is consistent with the model. In the curriculum, the school psychologist is regarded as the mesosystem in the child’s ecology, to characterize the psychologist’s central role in ensuring the promotion and protection of child rights within school, family, community, and society.

The Convention on the Rights of Child charges educators not only to respect children’s rights but also to prepare children to develop as responsible citizens in a free society. The Convention enriches the perspective of school psychologists by emphasizing the need to respect children’s rights while also promoting their competencies as political agents. The Convention also opens up new possibilities for school psychologists to collaborate with teachers and administrators in providing more effective civic education. Civic education should teach children not only about democratic institutions but also how to live democratically in their everyday lives. To this end civic education should not be limited to a course within the formal curriculum of the school. Schools ought to provide children with experiences of democratic governance by giving them the opportunity to make and enforce school rules and policies. School psychologists should help teachers to involve students in deliberations that affect their lives and to see discipline or classroom management as much more than a matter of establishing order through social control. With proper guidance and support children can learn how to deliberate together to uphold the rights of all and to pursue the common good.

In 2014, the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child presents an opportunity for school psychology to evaluate its achievements relevant to the Convention, as well as its current and future strategic adherence to the Convention’s principles. With analysis of key school psychology documentation from the UK, it is shown that for school psychologists the achievements and strategy relating to the international Convention have been directly, albeit implicitly, supported from ‘top down’, by the post-ratification governance processes and structures of national level agencies which operate school psychology preparation, statutory professional regulation, and non-statutory professional quality enhancement. On account of their use of a scientist-practitioner model, school psychologists are positioned to make a unique contribution to enacting the Convention’s agenda and from recent Convention evaluations five priority areas for strategic development in relation to the Convention are identified. An account of the authors’ commissioned work following a non-accidental child death in the UK illustrates how school psychologists can make significant contributions to Convention priorities from ‘bottom up’ as a result of significant contemporaneous events at local or national level. Implications of the ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’ linking of school psychologists’ work with the CRC agenda are discussed with reference to both the national and international school psychology communities and regulatory bodies.

Anxiety disorders are common in children and may signal risk of depression, social, or academic difficulties. This study evaluated the effects of a universal mental health promotion intervention delivered in primary schools. Three hundred and seventeen 9- to 10-year-olds were randomly allocated by class group to intervention conditions (psychologist-led or teacher-led), or a comparison condition. Coping and anxiety were measured pre- and post-intervention and at six-month follow-up. Significant anxiety reduction and improved coping were found post-intervention and at follow-up. There were no significant differences between the teacher- and psychologist-led intervention groups. Results indicated that a universal school programme delivered by teachers can have positive effects on anxiety and coping.

School psychology in Singapore gained greater prominence with the development of the National Mental Health Blueprint in 2007 that included a focus on children and adolescents. A partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education was formed to develop a community mental health pilot program called ‘Response, Early Intervention and Assessment in Community Mental Health for Students’ (REACH). Disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) are among the most common disorders seen in schools and child psychiatric clinics in Singapore. Children with disruptive behavior disorders (DBD) often exhibit deficits in social cognition and behavior, thereby influencing their cognitive appraisal processes and interpersonal problem-solving skills. This in turn affects their processing and interpretation of social cues in ambiguous situations, and mars subsequent production of socially competent behavior. This article describes a potential framework based on the cognitive-behavioral approach for working with children with disruptive behaviors and aggression in the school system. By combining REACH, a national collaborative framework, and evidence-based treatment programs, we provide a promising model of care to support children and their families in Singapore.