Handbook of School Mental Health: Research, Training, Practice, and Policy

Mark D. Weist. Ph.D., received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech and is currently a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Carolina. He was on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM) for 19 years where he helped to found and directed the Center for School Mental Health, currently the only federally funded center providing leadership to the advancement of school mental health (SMH) policies and programs in the United States. He has led a number of federally funded research grants, has advised national research and policy oriented committees, has testified before Congress, and presented to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. He helped to found the International Alliance for Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Schools (INTERCAMHS). Dr. Weist has edited six books and has published and presented widely in the SMH field and in the areas of trauma, violence and youth, evidence-based practice, and cognitive behavioral therapy. With colleagues from the Clifford Beers Foundation and the UMSM, he started the journal, Advances in School Mental Health Promotion.

Nancy A. Lever, Ph.D., received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Temple University and completed her psychology internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM). In 1998 she joined the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at UMSM as a faculty member and currently is an Associate Professor. She provided school mental health (SMH) services within a dropout prevention program for 10 years and facilitates a national practice group on connecting SMH with juvenile justice and dropout prevention. Dr. Lever directs two SMH programs in Baltimore City. In 1996, she joined the Center for School Mental Health (CSMH), a national resource center for advancing SMH research, training, policy, and practice. She served for many years as the CSMH Director of Training and Outreach. In July 2010, she was appointed the Co-Director of the CSMH. She helps to facilitate the National Community of Practice on Collaborative School Behavioral Health and represents the CSMH on local, state, and national committees. She has been a driving force in advancing training related to SMH and has coordinated training experiences for psychology interns, psychiatry fellows, postdoctoral fellows and SMH professionals. She has presented and written extensively about SMH and is co-editor of the first edition of the Handbook of School Mental Health.

Catherine Bradshaw, Ph.D., M.Ed. is a Professor and the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia (UVA). Prior to her current appointment at UVA, she was an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair of the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She maintains an affiliation with Johns Hopkins as the Deputy Director of the CDC-funded Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence and Co-Director of the NIMH-funded Johns Hopkins Center for Prevention and Early Intervention. She holds a doctorate in developmental psychology from Cornell University and a master’s of education in counseling and guidance from the University of Georgia. Her primary research interests focus on the development of aggressive behavior and school-based prevention. She collaborates on federally supported randomized trials of school-based prevention programs, including Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) and social-emotional learning curricula. She also has expertise in implementation science and coaching models. Dr. Bradshaw works with the Maryland State Department of Education and several school districts to support the development and implementation of programs and policies to prevent bullying and school violence, and to foster safe and supportive learning environments. She collaborates on federally-funded research grants supported by the NIMH, NIDA, CDC, and the Institute of Education Sciences. She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Research on Adolescence and the editor elect of Prevention Science.

Julie Sarno Owens, Ph.D., received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Purdue University and completed her clinical internship at the University of Florida, Health Sciences Center in the rural/primary care track. Dr. Owens is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Ohio University and Co-Director of the Center for Intervention Research in Schools. Her research focuses on the development and evaluation of school-based interventions for elementary school-aged youth with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and disruptive behavior problems. Her studies examine (a) the effectiveness and feasibility of transporting empirically-supported interventions into schools in underserved rural communities, (b) parents’ and teachers’ perceptions, satisfaction and acceptability of such treatments, and (c) factors that either enhance or interfere with the transportation, dissemination and sustainability of such treatments in rural communities. Dr. Owens is the Director of the Youth Experiencing Success in School (Y.E.S.S.) Program, a school-based mental health program that integrates evidence-based interventions for youth with ADHD into the school setting. The Y.E.S.S. Program, which has developed in the context of a 12-year university-community partnership, involves intervention development and evaluation research, and practical training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students, professional development training for local educators and mental health professionals, and treatment services for youth in our local region. As such the work emerging from the Y.E.S.S. Program has implications for the research, practice, training, and policy agendas at the local and national level.