Workshop Description

The purpose of this workshop is to strengthen school psychologists’ leadership as champions for advancing the health, full development, resilience and well-being of all children through child rights respecting education and treatment. It will provide foundational supports for understanding, appreciating and promoting children’s rights for children individually, in at-risk and at-opportunity status, and within the general population. The UN Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) will be the principles and standards from which powerful and practical applications will be derived to deal with challenging issues of learning, development and well-being. Guidance will be given for engaging in advocacy at local, national, and international levels.  Promising strategies will be presented and generated for exploring the needs and rights of each child and for ways to infuse child rights in all aspects of the school psychologist’s role. This workshop is specifically designed to empower school psychologists to ensure that child rights and well-being are central to the mission of education and learning and that these values are applied to promote leadership and policy reform within education. Participants will have opportunities to develop ideas for infusing child rights in practice, research, advocacy, and training. In addition, workshop activities will facilitate planning for engaging in systems change in education at local, national, and international levels. The workshop will draw from existing materials, including the International Handbook on Child Rights and School Psychology (Editors, Nastasi, Hart & Naser; published 2020 by Springer Nature), and UN resources focused on promotion and protection of child rights.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be strengthened in their capacities to:

(a) explore the needs and rights of children within an ecological and developmental context;

(b) analyze and apply the articles of the UN CRC;

(c) articulate the roles and responsibilities of each school psychologist for promoting and protecting the rights of each child in day-to-day practice; and

(d) identify and design ways to advance system change and policy reform to protect, promote and secure rights of each and every child.

The workshop content is applicable to all 10 NASP practice domains.

Brief Bios

Bonnie Kaul Nastasi, Ph.D., (Kent State University, 1986) is Professor of Psychology and Co-Director of Trauma Specialization in the School Psychology PhD Program at Tulane University. Dr. Nastasi has engaged in mixed methods research and development (R&D) to inform culturally relevant assessment and intervention approaches for promoting psychological well-being and reducing health risks, within the US and internationally. From 1995-2015, she conducted projects in Sri Lanka on school-based programming to promote psychological well-being. From 2002-2013, she was a co-principal investigator of interdisciplinary public health research programs to prevent STIs among married men and women in the slums of Mumbai, India. She has engaged locally in R&D for school-based mental health programming in New Orleans, LA. From 2008-2013, she directed a 12-country research collaboration to study psychological well-being of children and adolescents. Currently, she is a lead investigator of an international collaborative study of teacher well-being. Dr. Nastasi is active in international promotion of child rights in School Psychology. She is Past-President of International School Psychology Association, Past-President of American Psychological Association (APA) Division 16, and Past Council Representative for Division 16. She received the 2019 Senior Scientist Award from APA’s Division 16, and 2023 Distinguished Services Award from ISPA.

Stuart N. Hart, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus, School of Education, Indiana University Indianapolis; Principal of Strategic Initiatives for the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), Victoria, BC, Canada, affiliate of Royal Roads University; Co-Founder and Executive Board member of the Psychological Maltreatment Alliance (www.psychologicalmaltreatment.org).  He is a licensed psychologist (Indiana), nationally certified school psychologist (USA) and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.  He has worked in higher education (including directing a program to prepare school psychologists), public and private schools, a children’s hospital, a correctional institution, government, and private practice.  He has been president of the International School Psychology Association, National Association of School Psychologists (USA), National Committee for the Rights of the Child (USA), and the Indiana Psychological Association. He has co-chaired multiple programs for the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on advancing accountability to the children’s rights. He was editor and contributor to the UNESCO publication: Eliminating corporal punishment: The way forward to constructive child discipline (2005); and was an editor and contributor to the International Handbook on Child Rights and School Psychology (2020).  He has conducted research, presented, and published extensively on psychological maltreatment of children and on children’s rights. 

Lara Farina is a Ph.D. student in School Psychology at Tulane University. She holds a B.A. as a double major in Psychology and Women’s Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an M.A. in International Law and Human Rights from the United Nations-mandated University for Peace (Universidad para la Paz). Her research focuses on promoting psychological wellbeing through equitable healthcare and education access, emphasizing the intersections of mental health, culture, gender, sexual health, and human rights. Lara has over 12 years of experience working in education and with various NGOs internationally. Her master’s research explored human rights protection for women and children in the context of climate change and migration in Cambodia. Additionally, Lara has contributed to the research, development, and implementation of evidence-based, inclusive, and trauma-informed sexual health education programs across the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Currently, Lara is involved in a collaborative project investigating teacher wellbeing globally with the International Psychological Wellbeing Lab at Tulane University and serves as the student representative on the ISPA Task Force for Child Rights.