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Welcome Current and Future Facilitators!

* Welcome
* Training Goals of the Y.E.S.S. Program
* Training Activites
* Competency Development
* Grant Support
* Additional Resources for Facilitators

 Welcome!

The Y.E.S.S. Program has been implemented by graduate student clinicians from Ohio University's Departments of Psychology and Social Work, as well as by school guidance counselors and community mental health center case managers.

With regard to graduate training, one of the goals of the Child Specialty Area within the Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program is to provide experiential training opportunities that prepare students for research and clinical practice in an interdisciplinary climate.

With regard to professional development for school and community staff, the Y.E.S.S. Program training initiatives are intended to build local capacity for understanding and implementing evidence-based practices, improving school mental health programming, and enhancing access to quality care for youth and families in rural communities.

Broadly speaking, the training experiences are designed to create an environment where students and professionals from multiple disciplines can interface to enhance school mental health partnerships, services, and research.

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Training Goals of the Y.E.S.S. Program

• Enhance students’ knowledge and skills associated with delivering and evaluating evidence-based practices in community settings.
• Develop competencies related to interdisciplinary consultation and collaboration in the context of university-community partnerships.
• Prepare students for practice in rural communities.
• Expose trainees to innovative technology (video-conferencing).
• Retain trained professionals in Ohio and in rural communities across the nation.
   

Providing effective services in the context of schools requires a unique skill set. School-based delivery of services requires much more than simply moving mental health services under a new roof. It's about engaging in collaborative, interdisciplinary assessment, analysis, treatment planning, decision-making, intervention, and evaluation. To build competencies required in this service delivery model, students engage in a variety of innovative training experiences.

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Training Activities

• Preparatory Training
  • Rationale and philosophy of expanded school mental health
  • Scientifically-supported assessment and intervention strategies
  • Models of collaborative, interdisciplinary consultation
  • Using data to guide assessment and treatment decisions
  • Strategies to engage multiple stakeholders and to facilitate program adoption

• Year-long, Intensive Traineeship in Schools (2 days/week)
  • Closely supervised, case-based learning; Case load of 8 to 12 families
  • Individualized classroom interventions that facilitate home-school links
  • Individual and/or group-based behavioral parenting sessions
  • Collaborative teacher consultation
  • Individual child therapy
  • Consultation with other agencies
  • Comprehensive and ongoing Assessment

• Interdisciplinary Training Activities
  • Knowledge of laws and policies affecting the settings where children live, learn and receive care
  • Understanding, respecting and valuing of the unique contributions of different disciplines (e.g., medicine, nursing, speech/hearing, social work, law, etc.)
  • Skills required for interdisciplinary consultation and case conceptualization
  • Evidence-based practices within each discipline
  • Culturally-competent care within rural and urban settings
  • Exposure to innovative technology

 
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Competency Development

Competencies we hope to develop include:

• Knowledge of scientifically-supported assessment and intervention strategies
• Skills associated with data-driven treatment decisions
• Valuing the unique contributions of different disciplines
• Knowledge of laws and policies governing other disciplines
• Understanding the philosophy of expanded school mental health
• Ability to assess and integrate psychological practice into school culture
• Understanding discipline-specific biases, ethics, and expertise
• Collaborative, cross-discipline consultation skills
• Awareness of urban verses rural practice differences
• Comfort with videoconference technology for training, consultation and service

This training program places students in real world contexts to interface with professionals from multiple disciplines on a weekly basis. It teaches, through case-based learning, interdisciplinary consultation skills and the challenges of implementing and evaluating evidence-based practices in community settings. It exposes students to university-community collaboration and innovative technology as a way to foster preparation for integrated service delivery.

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Grant Support

The innovations in our training program have been funded by grants from the Ohio Department of Mental Health's Office of Best Practices Residency and Training Program and the Health Resources and Services Administration's Quentin Burdick Program for Rural Interdisciplinary Training (D36HP03160).

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