Career in School Psychology
Instructions
Your Career in Psychology
Throughout the course, you had opportunities to clarify your passions and interests in psychology practice and scholarship, create SMART goals to help you achieve your vision, and explore the competencies and requirements for pursuing a career in your specialized field of psychology. This final assignment provides you an opportunity to transform your vision into reality by translating your exploration and brainstorming activities into a plan to actualize your vision and achieve your goals. Complete the following:
Vision and Goals
By the time you complete this final assignment, you gained a lot more knowledge and insights about your interests in psychology and your career trajectory. To begin this assignment, take some time to reflect on all you have learned about the field and ways you can contribute to psychology. Refine your vision and long-term goals from Unit 3 to reflect your evolution throughout the course. Update your Articulating Your Purpose activity to help support these revisions.
Competencies and Requirements
Understanding the competencies and responsibilities involved with your future career in psychology is essential to prepare yourself to become a practitioner-scholar in your field. It is also necessary to understand any requirements that enable your specialized practice and scholarship. For this step in the assignment, outline the competencies, responsibilities, and other requirements for achieving your vision and goals. These may include:
- Capella program and specialization requirements.
- Skills and abilities critical to success within the field of psychology such as effective decision making, problem solving, evidence-based solutions, and conflict resolution skills.
- Credentialing, certification, licensure, and accreditation practices and standards.
- Ethical codes, principles, laws, and policies applicable to your chosen career path.
Once you understand those requirements, reflect on your current competencies, previous experiences, and achievements that help you meet those requirements. Since you are at the beginning of your journey to a future career, you will have some gaps in your knowledge, skills, attitudes, and credentials. Identify any areas in which you need further development to achieve your goals and vision as a psychology practitioner-scholar.
Action Plan
With all this knowledge of your vision and goals and the competencies and requirements for the field in hand, you are ready to plot your course to make these aspirations a reality. The final step in this assignment is to create an action plan to achieve your goals. This means translating the requirements for your profession and the development areas you identified into specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed steps to achieve your vision. These steps may include:
- Completing your Capella program, additional training, and volunteer opportunities to overcome your knowledge and skill gaps.
- Creating opportunities in your current position to develop additional skills through coaching or stretch assignments.
- Joining Capella Community groups and professional organizations for networking with others and completing additional informational interviews.
- Staying current with the research and literature in the field by reading specific peer-reviewed journals.
- Using Smarthinking and other support resources to develop the skills required to successfully develop your writing and other competencies essential to the profession and your role as a graduate learner.
At this point, there may be an overwhelming number of steps that you could complete to work towards your vision. If it helps you work through this plan, focus on major milestones and requirements as well as steps you can take during your Capella degree program to help translate your vision into SMART short-term goals and tasks.
Consider reviewing the SMART Goals Presentation, Career Center, or searching the Capella Library or the Internet for additional reflective exercises or inspiring ideas about transforming your vision into an action plan.
Solution.
Abstract
My main aim as a
school psychologist is to provide the necessary psychological help to those in
need. For me, working towards assisting individuals will come with the help of
developing my educational, professional and degree goals. Being a psychologist
will be essential both to other people around me and me. I will focus on
improving the learning process and the helping students in behavior
modification.
My Career in School Psychology
Introduction
As school psychologist practitioner, it is required of me to concentrate on the fine details that the psychology field entails. Such detail encompasses specific areas of interest and passion, primarily in school psychology (Hamre, et al., 2013). Consequently, it implies that, for any professional to be prerogative that I have majored in this field, and then I must have met the necessary requirements concerning the career of being a school psychologist. For instance, an individual must possess the knowledge of my career goal, visions and an enhanced training qualification from an excellent educational institution. This paper will outline a plan that provides an actual examination and brainstorming activities that support the plan for the school p psychology vision and goal attainment.
Vision and Goals
As an education psychologist, I should work interactively with the students and my colleagues to facilitate delivery of quality teaching and reintegrate my profession with other professions to provide a better environment for students and community. All these services are expected of a school psychologist (Brewer, 2009). Educational psychology focuses on the improvement of academic achievement through promoting student motivation and engagement, monitoring classroom behavior, and conduct psychological assessment and academic assessment. Below are some of the vision and goals of educational psychology professionals in the improvement of the learning process.
- Supporting diverse learners through assessment of different learning needs. Additionally, provision of culturally responsive services to students and families from varied backgrounds.
- Creating a safe and positive climate in the area of expertise. This goal can be achieved through prevention of bullying and other forms of violence that occur in school as well as implementing and promoting positive discipline and invigorating justice.
- Strengthening the relationship between families of students and the school administration by making parents understand how their children’s mental health needs and learning.
- Improving the assessment and accountability in monitoring individual student progress in behavior and academics through ongoing collection and analysis of student and school outcome data.
Therefore, a vision provides me with a complete prototype of educational services by defining a framework for developing and fostering quality education to students and the community as a whole. Additionally, it is my duty as a school psychologist to implement an active monitoring plan so that I can cater to all students irrespective of their background and culture.
Moreover, in school psychology, through my career visions and goals, it will be advisable that I will approach an educational service that provides a holistic view school psychology and connecting various methods in addressing the biopsychosocial factors that contribute to the learning process of students within my expertise.
Competencies and Requirements
School psychologists are professionals in educational institutions with diverse skills and expertise in exploring the connection that exists between the student, the teacher, and their families as well as the whole community. Therefore, it is vital for an individual in the school psychology field will be at risk or suffers from the active relationships with the parties involved in the learning process.
As school psychologist works directly with the client, the student, however, researchers are present in this field, and they primarily focus on exploring how the psychosocial factors especially cultural differences that affect the learning process.
Additionally, multicultural differences such as best practices for this profession must be multicultural competent when providing the ten domains of practices and services. In the teaching profession, it extends to ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, social class and geographic location. Hence, as a school psychologist, I am entitled to accept my cultural beliefs and values so that I can understand the impact it may impose to students and families when delivering services. Moreover, to reach out to the student individually, a school psychologist must be able to utilize the use of consultation techniques; it is advisable in the case where intervention techniques are not sufficient.
Education and Training
A qualified and well-trained school psychologist must have the education to a doctoral level. The Capella University is one of the accredited learning commission and it offers online doctoral and Master’s degree programs in psychology (Anderson, 1998). Much of the training in undertaking a degree in school psychology is done at the graduate level as an advance. Therefore, any student who does not enroll in his or her dedicated program in psychology must seek out for adequate advice from the prolific mentors regarding the course. Such is possible due to the presence of a limited opportunity in enrolling for a course in psychology.
Furthermore, a doctoral degree in school psychology from Capella University requires an individual to go through a thorough 1200-hour internship in an accredited educational institution. The most specialized training is experienced in the post-doctoral years. Also, these opportunities are funded by organizations as an extensive program of the National Institutes of Education. School psychologists are required by the government to have a state license with a standard psychologist’s license. Additionally, psychologists have to practice in their specific areas of expertise.
Professional Competence
It refers to the implementation of the code of ethical and legal conduct that covers the management and the interaction with students, families and colleague, and persistent in the development of an aspect of the self-directed professional psychologist. According to the National Association of School Psychologists, it is imperative for a school psychologist to adhere to the stipulated code of legal and ethical conduct. Therefore, they must exercise professional decision making through assessment criteria, collaborate with other professionals and apply professional work features that are required for effective practice as school psychologists. Additionally, at any given time school psychologist must adhere to the ethical guidelines provided by the American Psychological Association for the betterment of the students and their families. For example, as a psychologist, it is not ethically right to “do harm:” to students or other colleagues around your serenity.
Action Plan
The action plan consists of the necessary steps that I will utilize for the attainment of my career in psychology. I will complete my program at Capella University; seek additional training, and volunteer opportunities to overcome my skills gaps and knowledge gaps.
School psychology is my primary area of study. Since school entails the essential part of the life of individuals, primarily on a child’s life. Therefore, as a school psychologist, I will focus on delivering the best education to students and nurture them to become better and healthy individuals by utilizing my skills and expertise gained in the field of psychology.
I am so much intrigued in understanding the psychological makeup of the people around me so that I can help where possible and guide them through their life journeys. I am interested in having face-to-face communication with the student so that I can understand them better. Additionally, I am passionate about adolescence education and child education. I will pursue a doctoral degree in school psychology, and this is my degree goal. Also, I would take another degree in childhood education to better my experience.
In practicing psychology, I will emphasize primarily on behavior change for the betterment of an individual’s psychological health: there would be an extensive outlook on counseling.I am confident that my services will be helpful to most students during interactions. Consequently, coming up with a private organization to offer counseling services will help me better marketing and business skills and strategies (Vos, Clippeleer, & Dewilde, 2009).
Furthermore, through joining Capella University community groups and professional organization for networking others, especially in America and linked to organizations such as APA and NASP is a better layout for the foundation to attain and ensuring that my school psychology career is will be developed and enhanced. By doing interviews with different experts in my field of study will give me motivation and a way forward by providing additional information to enrich my professional goals.
I will be of great help to me to read peer-reviewed journals and to stay updated with the new research findings and literature in the field of psychology. APA as an official publisher of scientific documents, they emphasize on scholars conducting original research and findings concerning psychology. Hence the use of journals will expand my theoretical analysis, service delivery and gain relevant information regarding my field of study.
Use of SMART Thinking Criteria
My goals are must follow the SMART thinking obligations since they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed. My goals are focused on attaining a doctoral degree in school psychology in the next two years. Additionally, I will add business and marketing skills on my profile in the next 1 and a half years. I will join an educational institution for at least five years to interact with students and help them better their learning process. For this reason, I believe that my goals are specific and measurable.
I will emphasize on behavior change and improvement in academics where there would be the presence of counseling. Other essential services that I will achieve will involve problem-solving skills and creation of bonds and links with my students in attaining the core goals of education. Hence, these goals are achievable and realistic.
My research will major focus on adolescence behavior and childhood learning. All these activities will be completed in a period of three years. Therefore after attaining my doctoral degree in School Psychology, I will assess my career development and figure out if I need more out of my overall skills that I have gained for the past three years.
Conclusion
As a result of
attaining all the goals mentioned above, I will use my expertise and skills to
conduct a noteworthy research that will be beneficial to all parties involved.
The research will be original and published. My passion for psychology is the
key to achieving my objective in a SMART technique. My students will receive the
best of my expertise and skills that I will gain after graduating with a
doctoral degree in school psychology.
References
Anderson, D. (1998). A Focus on Career: Graduate Training in Counseling Psychology. Journal Of Career Development, 25(2), 101-110.
Brewer, G. (2009). Career Planning and Awareness in Psychology Undergraduates. Psychology Learning & Teaching, 8(2), 37-42.
Hamre, B. K., Pianta, R. C., Downer, J. T., DeCoster, J., Mashburn, A. J., Jones, S. M., et al. (2013). Teaching through interactions. The Elementary School Journal, 113(4), 461-487.
Vos, A., Clippeleer, I., & Dewilde, T. (2009). Proactive Career Behaviours and Career Success during the Early Career. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82(4), 761-777.
