NJASP Spring Conference 2016
Friday, May 6, 2016
Featured presenters:
Keynote: Todd Savage, NASP President
Todd Savage: Helping LBGTQ+ Students Succeed at School and Home
Barbara Bole-Williams: Ethics in the Digital Age
Sharon Lohrmann: Practices for Implementing High Quality Functional Behavior Assessments
George Mccloskey: Correlating Cognitive Assessment to Learning
Helping LBGTQ+ Students Succeed at School and Home: This workshop is paired with Ethics in the Digital Age.
LBGTQ+ students face a myriad of challenges affecting their abilities to succeed at school and at home. The purpose of this session is to augment the participants awareness of sexuality, gender identity, and gender diversity, in general: to assist the participants in constructing a knowledge base pertaining to sexuality, gender identity, gender diversity, and the schools: and to increase the participant's potential to work successfully with this population. Direct instruction, videos, and small and large group interactions will be employed to enhance participant learning.
Todd A. Savage, Ph.D., NCSP: earned his doctorate in school psychology from the University of Kentucky in 2002. Having worked as a consultant for several education-related agencies, he joined the school psychology faculty at New Mexico State University in 2004. Since 2008, Dr. Savage has been on the school psychology faculty at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where he currently holds the rank of associate professor. He teaches courses on diversity and inclusion; consultation; assessment; public policy and advocacy; and school crisis prevention, preparedness, and intervention. His research interests include culturally-responsive practice; social justice in school psychology; issues of sexual orientation and gender identity as they pertain to the schooling process; and school crisis response. He has published multiple articles and chapters in a variety of sources, in addition to providing professional development focused primarily on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender student matters as well as the PREPaRE school crisis prevention and intervention curriculum published by the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Dr. Savage’s NASP service includes terms as New Mexico Delegate; Leadership Development Workgroup chair and co-chair; and Program Manager for the Professional Development Program Area.
Ethics in the Digital Age: This workshop is paired with Helping LBGTQ+ Students Succeed at School and Home.
This workshop will provide participants with knowledge and understanding of their ethical responsibilities regarding the use of electronic communication and digital technology. Discussion with focus on interpretation of the NASP’s 2010 Principles for Professional Ethics related to these challenging areas. Participants will learn and practice a problem-solving model to process actual cases involving issues presented to school psychologists surrounding professional use of electronic communication and digital technology.
***This workshop will provide participants with the required three (3) CPDs in ethics and professional practices that are required for those renewing their NCSP.
Barbara Bole Williams, PhD, NCSP is a professor and coordinator of the School Psychology Program at Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ. Before becoming a graduate educator, Barbara had extensive experience working in the public schools as a school psychologist and director of special services. She holds a PhD from Temple University. She is past President of New Jersey Association of School Psychologists (NJASP) and past New Jersey Delegate and Delegate Representative for the Northeast Region for the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). She currently serves as the Chair of the NCSP Certification Board for NASP.
Barbara has served on the NASP Ethics Committee for seven years as representative from the Northeast region of the country. She is presently a member of the NASP Ethics Advisory Panel. She is the lead author in the 2008 NASP publication, Professional Ethics for School Psychologists: A Problem-Solving Model Casebook (2008) and second edition (2011) co-authored by Leigh Armistead and Susan Jacob. Barbara chaired the NASP Task Force to Revise the NASP Standards, including the current ethical standards. She is the recipient of the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from NASP conferred at the 2011 NASP Convention in San Francisco, CA.
Practices for Implementing High Quality Functional Behavior Assessments:
The purpose of this full day workshop is to present the core features of a high quality Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA). Dr. Lohrmann will present a step by step process for gathering, organizing and interpreting FBA information and data. Case examples and practice activities will provide participants with an opportunity apply the content. Participants will receive electronic copies of the tools and resources presented during the session. Highlights of this session include:
- Following the FBA implementation plan: a step by step guide for carrying out an FBA.
- Facilitating consensus building meetings: through a video example, participants will learn how to facilitate a team based interview process.
- Gathering and documenting data: tools, resources, tips and examples for gathering information and documenting a baseline.
- Interpreting data and determining function: tips and strategies for how to make sense of all the information gathered to determine function of behavior.
- Selecting interventions: tips and strategies for how to plan for a cohesive intervention plan.
- Monitoring progress: strategies for how what to monitor and how to monitor once the intervention is in place
Sharon Lohrmann, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at The Boggs Center, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Since 2004, she has directed the New Jersey Positive Behavior Support in Schools initiative (NJ PBSIS), a partnership with the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. The mission of the NJ PBSIS initiative is to build capacity among New Jersey school personnel to implement Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, a tiered system of behavior intervention to create school environments conducive to social and academic development. Through the NJ PBSIS website www.njpbs.org, the NJ PBSIS resources and products are available to for public use.
Dr. Lohrmann is actively engaged in research on the application of positive behavior support in schools and has authored a number of publications in peer-reviewed journals. She is the past Editor of Connections and serves on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions and Research and Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities. Dr. Lohrmann is the recipient of the Dr. Irwin A. Hyman Service to Children Award, she is a two time elected Board of Director for TASH www.tash.org, and member of the Northeast PBIS Regional Network Advisory group.
Correlating Cognitive and Achievement Assessment to Learning: Registrants must sign up for AM and PM session of this workshop
This workshop will focus on correlating the results of cognitive and achievement testing to assist in identification of learning disabilities. An emphasis will be placed on writing psychoeducational reports that integrate results of frequently used cognitive and achievement tests to develop a comprehensive summary with an emphasis on functional recommendations. Attendees will leave with an understanding of which factors on the cognitive assessment influence math, reading, and writing. This workshop is ideal for practicing psychologists and learning consultants.
***This workshop fullfils the NJ state requirement of 2 hours of professional development directly related to assessment and intervention of dyslexia.
George McCloskey, Ph.D., is a Professor and Director of School Psychology Research in the Psychology Department of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He frequently presents at national, regional and state meetings on executive function assessment and interventions; reading assessment & instruction and reading disabilities; neuropsychologically-oriented psycho-educational assessment, classroom interventions for cognitive process problems, and linking assessment with interventions. Dr. McCloskey is the lead author of Intellectual, cognitive, and neuropsychological assessment in three-tier service delivery systems in schools which appears in the third edition of Contemporary intellectual assessment: Theories, tests and issues.
Click here for a paper copy of conference: brochure: Conference Brochure PDF.pdf
