An examination of family oriented practice and cultural diversity in school psychology: A national survey of school psychology practitioner

This study examined school psychologists' professional practices and training in the areas of family oriented services and cultural diversity. The School Psychology Family Practices Questionnaire was mailed to a stratified random sample of 500 doctoral and non-doctoral school psychologists drawn from the 1999 membership roster of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Return rates included: 61.2% for the whole sample, 58.7% within the non-doctoral stratum, and 66.9% within the doctoral stratum. The survey contained open and closed ended questions that collected information describing the sample's demographic characteristics, professional practices, and training experiences.;In the area of family oriented practices, child focused individual student assessment represented the most common professional practice among school-based practitioners. Indirect services, such as parent consultation and home-school collaboration activities, represented the most commonly practiced family interventions. Parent consultation and home-school collaboration activities were conducted by over 80% of respondents and occupied at least 24% of respondents' professional time. By contrast, direct family services, such as family therapy, were conducted by less than 11% of respondents and occupied the less than 2% of respondents' professional time. With regard to training, more respondents received coursework (81.4%) and practicum experiences (57.9%) that involved family consultation than received training in family therapy and family assessment indicating that the content of school psychologists' training in family oriented services corresponds to the indirect services most frequently provided to parents and families in school settings.;In the area of cultural diversity, data analysis suggested that school psychology is an ethnically homogeneous profession that provides services to a diverse population of students and families and that additional training is needed in this area. Though greater than 25% of school psychological services were provided to ethnically different students or families, only 9.5% of respondents represented members of an ethnic minority group. With regard to training, 23.3% of respondents were dissatisfied with their training in the provision of services to ethnically different populations. To improve training, respondents called for an increase in supervised exposure to culturally diverse populations during practicum and internship experiences.