Professional Development of School Psychologists as Child Rights Advocates

Creating a culture of respect for child rights within professional school psychology requires that child rights are central to the ideology of professionals individually and collectively and that individual professionals have the knowledge, values, beliefs, and skills for engaging in child advocacy. To accomplish this necessitates review and possible reconceptualization or extension of professional preparation and development. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the competencies necessary for engaging in advocacy efforts and current representation of child rights in professional standards for training, practice, and ethics and to propose a course of action for initial preparation in university training programs and continued professional development of school psychologists. We also introduce the training materials (These training materials are available in a training manual which is a resource to this volume provided online at no charge by the publisher) developed through the collaborative efforts of ISPA, CRED-PRO, Tulane University, APA’s Division 16, and Cleveland State University, and we conclude with recommendations for training programs and professional organizations.