The Position

The Upper School Psychologist is a full-time, ten-month position to help support the approximately 550 students in the Upper School. The position reports to the Head of Upper School and works collaboratively with the division's other psychologist. In addition to providing direct support and interventions for students, they will advise school leaders regarding school-wide practices and work with faculty members and families to ensure student health and learning. The role requires particular expertise in the areas of adolescent social and emotional development, resiliency skill building, and counseling strategies for prevention, treatment, consultation, and crisis management. Qualified applicants will meet the following criteria:

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide short-term counseling and consultation to Upper School students
• Promote Upper School student success, provide preventative services, and respond to student emotional, psychological, academic, and social needs.
• Ensure Upper School students, families, and faculty members know the psychologist/counselor is available to provide students effective and helpful emotional, psychological, and social support.
• Consult with faculty and parents on emotional well-being of Upper School students.
• Initiate outreach and prevention programs focused on social and emotional skill-building and health and wellness.
• Collaborate with the team of Upper, Middle, and Lower School psychologists and counselors to ensure smooth transitions for our students from PreK-12.
• Act as a resource for teachers and administrators, developing action plans for students needing support, and broadly assisting the faculty's efforts to best serve EA students.
• Execute student risk assessments based on best professional practices.
• Has strong relationships with external health professionals to ensure that EA students are connected with external resources when needed or appropriate.
• Provide crisis intervention and situation specific interventions.
• Ensure that families of students with emotional and other needs are well-counseled, and when appropriate, connected with external expertise
• Ability to read and interpret educational and psychoeducational reports, including helping others understand how they impact individual students.
• Work with learning specialists to assist students academically.
• Leads small faculty meetings in support of student well-being and success.
• Help develop prevention and intervention focused services.

Qualifications:

• A doctoral or master's degree in Counseling, Clinical, School Psychology, Social Work
• Professional PA license required
• Experience working with students in grades 9-12 is required
• Understanding of common diagnostic formulation (DSM-5). Working understanding of current treatment approaches (e.g., CBT, SFBT, DBT).
• Candidates with five or more years of relevant experience providing counseling and academic support services to adolescents, ideally within an independent school setting, will be viewed favorably.
• Candidates with strong knowledge of local mental health resources will be viewed favorably.
• Demonstrated ability and desire to work collaboratively as part of a team
• Understanding of social and cognitive developmental stages of childhood
• Strong cultural competency skills: ability to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with people across cultures and diverse backgrounds
• Outstanding organizational, problem solving, and decision-making skills
• Ability to organize tasks and priorities and strong follow through with communications and interventions
• Exceptional ability to collaborate with all school constituencies
• Fluent with and willing to continue learning technology to manage calendar, communications, and data collection
• Strong background and interest in professional development in social and emotional learning and executive functioning

Who We Are

While each employee at Episcopal brings a unique set of competencies and skills to their work, we believe all employees should:

• Be student-centered, embraces school and life and shows it through actions and interactions with students, colleagues, and parents.
• Embody and live The Stripes.
• Consistently maintain high standards for his or her own work and motivates others to achieve the same standard of excellence.
• Demonstrate a desire and willingness to constantly grow and learn, both personally and professionally, and sees others – especially students – as having the ability to learn and reach success.
• Foster a positive culture by being optimistic, selfless, flexible, and collaborative.
• Demonstrate a belief in and commitment to fostering an inclusive and diverse school community.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit a cover letter, current resume, and list of three references as pdf documents to jobs@episcopalacademy.org. Please include "Upper School Psychologist" in the subject line.

Position Term Begins: 2021-2022 School Year

The Episcopal Academy seeks candidates who hope to help foster a school environment where all people are valued and where all perspectives are respected and appreciated, as described in our Diversity and Inclusion statement.