The NASP Connection

March 2023

Happy Spring (hopefully soon!)! I apologize for not communicating in a while. As I'm sure it is with you, there has been a lot going on in my buildings, district, around the state, and at the national level with NASP. I hope you all have had a good school year. It has been a challenging year as we work with staff, students, and families amidst elevated levels of anxiety, struggles, and uncertainty.

Some news from NASP that I’d like to share is that in the fall of 2022, the NASP Leadership Assembly voted to reduce the number of strategic goals from five down to three by combining a couple of them. The goals represent outcome-oriented statements intended to guide and measure the organization’s future success. They include the following:

GOAL A: PRACTICE MODEL School psychologists and school systems implement the NASP Model for Comprehensive and Integrated Psychological Services (NASP Practice Model).

GOAL B: WORKFORCE SHORTAGES SOLUTIONS There is a high-quality and diverse school psychology workforce that meets the critical demand for school psychological services.

GOAL C: SOCIAL JUSTICE School psychologists have the self-awareness and critical consciousness to engage in and advocate for socially just practices that protect the right of every student to receive high quality educational access, opportunities, and experiences.

To get more information on the happenings around our state, I sent out a survey recently to gather information on the needs of school psychologists in Idaho and below are the responses from 96 former, current, and future school psychologists indicating what are of highest priority in their minds.

As you can see two of our top concerns in Idaho align exactly with NASP’s strategic goals – workforce shortages and using the NASP Practice Model to expand the overall perception of what we can do in our schools. My hope and focus, as well as the two NASP Student Representatives - Jim and Bailey - is to do what we can to work towards improving these areas in Idaho. If you would like to be a part of leadership and working towards these goals, we are always in need of ISPA board participation. Please reach out to our current ISPA President, Sterling Fitch, our ISPA President-Elect, Julie Mead, or me if you have any questions or would like to volunteer to be on the board.

The Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School book study class – as part of NASP National Read on social justice – that I have been facilitating this year has been meeting since the fall and will conclude our class this month. It has been a challenging book for those school psychologists across our state who have been reading it but has also allowed us the opportunity to reflect on our own practices and work in schools and with families. These book studies have been great opportunities for school psychologists across the state to collaborate, learn, and reflect on what we do in our practice every day. I hope to continue to do book studies in the years to come.

Please mark your calendars for some upcoming events:

• 1)      PREPaRE Workshop 1, Third Edition, Comprehensive School Safety Planning: Prevention Through Recovery Training on Wednesday, May 3^rd in the Treasure Valley. This 1-day workshop allows participants to learn how to establish and sustain comprehensive school safety efforts that attend to both physical and psychological safety. This workshop is great for school mental health professionals, administrators, teachers, other pupil services personnel, and security officers. The cost will be $25 per person and limited to the first 100 individuals/teams who sign up.
• 2)      Save the Date: 2023 Super Conference that will occur Tuesday, October 3^rd through Thursday, October 5^th at Boise State University.

Stay healthy and take care of yourself and each other! Have a wonderful spring break, too!

Teresa