You guys. You broke the School Psych Internet.
A few weeks ago, I posted 3 Free Resources for School Psychologist Awareness week and my SERVER CRASHED.
Here is the conversation I had with the tech support:
Me: I am getting a ton of emails from people saying that my website is down.
Tech Guy: Happy to look into that. **muzak plays** M’am, we had a huge spike about 3 hours ago that overwhelmed the system. Can you think of anything that happened then?
Me: I sent an email telling a bunch of school psychologists that there were some resources for School Psychologist Awareness Week available on my blog.
Tech Guy: Wow. School psychologists really want people to be aware.
Me: LOL…DON’T I KNOW IT!
So y’all, I’ve upgraded my plan and am ready to share 3 more resources with you!
1) Podcast: 4 Things Your School Psychologist Wants You to Know about SPED Referrals
12 years ago, I met Angela Watson, a teacher, blogger, and author. She is like my teacher spirit animal…she works with teachers on well-being, productivity, and best practices to free up time to enjoy their work in a course very similar to my Thriving School Psychologist Collective. I had her on my YouTube show, Coffee Break School Psychology a few months ago about productivity and self-care. After the recording, we started talking about special education. I hopped on my soapbox of how school psychs are so much more than testing machines and how frustrating it can be when special education is seen as the “only game in town” to get kids help. She invited me on her podcast to talk more.
Before I went on the show, I polled all of you on social media about what you wish teachers knew about school psychologists and special education referrals.
On the podcast, I shared the 4 themes that emerged…
…and, for extra credit, I told her nearly 140K teacher audience why we reeeeeeeallllllly need teacher rating scales back! You’re welcome. 🤣
Here’s the episode you can read, listen to, or download. I hope I represented us for SPAW!
2) 10 Reasons to Be A School Psychologist Poster!
Remember when we crowd-sourced the Top 10 Reasons we love school psychology? And then I commissioned one of my besties to make cute drawings for each reason? Well….we took it a step further and created the Top 10 Reasons to Be a School Psychologist Poster so we can show our school psychologist pride! This poster was created by us, for us!
Ways to Use This Resource
✔ Hang poster up in your office to showcase what you love about being a school psychologist!
✔ Buy a poster for yourself for School Psychologist Awareness Week! (Go on, TREAT YO’ SELF!)
✔ Makes a great gift for your school psych bestie, new graduates, and graduating interns!
3) Special Discount on the “Science of Happiness for School Psychologists” Mini-Course!
For anyone who has been following this blog for a while, you may know that this all started as a way for me to connect with other school psychologists. I wanted to share the good, bad, and OMG IS ANYONE ELSE EXPERIENCING THIS TOO moments of being a school psych.
And then, 8 years ago I had a career and personal crisis that let to me questioning if I was going to be able to sustain my energy and enthusiasm in the career. This work/life balance crisis ultimately led to what would be nearly a decade of mining the positive psychology research and pulling out concepts to try at work. I’ve even interviewed school psychologists who have been in the field for 30+ years and asked them for tips on sustaining and how they managed to stay engaged and thriving.
And out of this “ME-search” on Happiness, I started an online course and community for school psychologists to address our challenges together. In 2017, I enrolled the first cohort of over 100 school psychologists across the country in The Thriving School Psychologist Collective course.
And I didn’t know it at the time, but I accidentally created a real-time lab for trying out scientific principles of happiness and career satisfaction with hundreds of school psychologists across the country.
Born out of the perfect alchemy of positive psychology science and what members of the Thriving School Psychologist Collective course members told me moved the needle in their happiness in their careers, I create a new online “Mini-Course” just for school psychologists.*
And in honor of SPAW2019, this course is discounted through the end of the week so that you all can join me in sustaining (or rekindling!) your love of the profession.
Click here to get your special SPAW rate!
I can’t wait to hear what you all think! After taking the course, I’d love to fill social media with positive messages about school psychology careers! Post and follow the hashtag #tspgoals (Thriving School Psychologist Goals!) and tag me on Facebook @schoolpsych or Instagram @thrivingschoolpsych.
Happy SPAW everyone! And I hope you all break the school psych Internet again with posts of what you love about this career!
Dr. Rebecca Branstetter is a school psychologist, speaker, and author on a mission to help public school psychologists manage their stress, improve their efficacy and enjoyment in their work, and prevent getting burned out so they can focus on what they love to do—being champions for helping children be the best they can be in school and in life and supporting educators and families.
*In partnership with schoolpsych.com, this mini-course is also NASP-approved for one CEU credit!