I am pleased to introduce an article from Paul Russell for the Applied Practices section of the journal, entitled ‘System Approaches to School Psychology (Or Why School Psychologists Shouldn’t See Kids)’. Paul is a psychologist from Western Australia. He originally presented key ideas in this article at the APACS National Conference in Melbourne in 2017, where it created a lot of interest and discussion. Paul has taken this forward through the writing and long review process to now be able to share his paper with a wider group of colleagues, both APACS members and our extended readership.
Paul explores change within schools and the potentially wider role of school psychologists in facilitating such change, by presenting a cogent argument about the reality of evidence-based change being critical in school contexts over time. Importantly, the individual student also benefits from this renewed focus, as there is a firm acknowledgment that students’ difficulties and their solutions are occurring within various systems, and not as ‘deficits’ within the student themself. Few contemporary school psychologists operate on a narrow child-centred model; instead, most acknowledge that Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems approach (e.g., Reference Bronfenbrenner2005) is more useful and more likely to lead to positive change for the student. However, in his article, Paul extends the argument by more directly linking the need for school psychologists to work actively on school systems to enable better outcomes for students, and by emphasising how Australia is particularly slow in taking up these approaches.
Applied Practices’ requirements are noted below. In this section of the journal, papers need to have an applied focus, with scope for colleagues to offer papers such as:
small-scale evaluations of practice, where the findings are interesting and noted as preliminary and worthy of further exploration, even if these are not methodologically at the standard required for contributions to the main journal (e.g., no control group);
conceptual or research literature reviews with implications for practice, with a specific reflective argument addressing practice, possibly provocatively;
linked case studies in therapeutic, learning, and behaviour areas of intervention integrated around a common theme.
Sources might include: reports from presentations; work in progress where preliminary data is reported, allowing the author to submit full findings later; conference presentations that you want to develop further; and adapted students’ assignments. Appropriately selected peer reviewers referee all papers.
Review guidelines include the following:
1. The article is of interest and relevance to members.
2. It is well written, properly referenced using APA 6th edition guidelines, and is grammatically correct.
3. It has a literature base supporting the work’s findings and/or thinking.
4. It is approximately 3000 words.
5. It may contain a 120-word abstract.
6. It has a clearly articulated argument and looks to future directions; thus, the work is beyond simple description, and needs to be analytical and critical in its approach.
Please submit via ScholarOne at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jgc
I am keen to support Professor Campbell’s wish for more papers to be submitted to this section of the journal. You can all write about an area of your practice or an issue that interests you and share your work with your peers, as well as become a published author. I can guide and advise people who are prepared to write. Contact me for support or to run ideas past me: susan.colmar@sydney.edu.au.
