2016 American Psychological Association Division 16 Oakland Mid-Career Scholar Award

Scholar Award

American Psychological Association, fellow

Association for Psychological Science, fellow

Society for the Study of School Psychology, president-elect

Chris Rock and Will Smith can afford selective outrage. The rest of us can’t.

School mental health resources critical to ensuring safe school environments

Pandemic-related school closings likely to have far-reaching effects on child well-being

How to Use Homework to Support Student Success

Why Mental Well-Being Promotion Must Extend to Youth Sports

Students are returning to school with anxiety, grief and gaps in social skills – will there be enough school mental health resources?

Spring Is Time for a Check-Up on Family Well-Being

Bringing ‘behavioral vaccines’ to school: 5 ways educators can support student well-being

Reopening schools requires doing less, better

Trump’s reaction to defeat further confirms urgency for school focus on social emotional skills

Here’s Why Silver Linings Are Important to Education in 2021

COVID-19 means a lot more work for families of children with disabilities, but schools can help

Finding Joy through the Holiday Season

Talking to Kids About the Dysfunctional Presidential Debate

America Is Facing a Teen Suicide Pandemic

4 Questions to Ask Now in Preparing Your Child for School

How to Help Children Navigate Back-to-School Debates

Responding to COVID-19: Planning For Trauma-Informed Assessment In Schools

Our teens are missing so many milestones, but there are things we can do

5 things college students should include in a plan for their wellness

Stress: Family Caregivers Of Children With Disabilities

A Review of State-Level Procedural Guidance for Implementing Multitiered Systems of Support for Behavior (MTSS-B)

A systematic review of trauma screening measures for children and adolescents

Addressing Childhood Trauma in School Settings: A Framework for Evidence‑Based Practice.

Accessing Behavioral Health Services: Introduction to a Special Issue of Research, Policy, and Practice

Analysis of State-Level Guidance Regarding School-Based, Universal Screening for Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Risk

The University of Connecticut (UConn) is one of America’s top 20 public universities, according to U.S. News & World Report. It is home to more than 31,000 students, 1,300 faculty, 230,000 proud alumni, and a handsome husky named Jonathan.

The University has fourteen schools and colleges: Agriculture and Natural Resources, Business, Dental Medicine, Education, Engineering, Fine Arts, Law, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Social Work. Students can choose from eight undergraduate bachelor's degrees with 102 possible majors, as well as seventeen graduate/doctoral degrees and five professional degree programs (MD, JD, etc.).

UConn's main campus in Storrs is admitting the highest-achieving freshmen in University history. Student diversity continues to increase, as does the number of honors students, valedictorians and salutatorians who consistently make UConn their top choice. It's a great time to be a Husky!

University of Connecticut

Based in the Neag School of Education, Chafouleas serves as co-director of the UConn Collaboratory on School and Child Health (CSCH). Chafouleas has had continued success with extramurally funded research, with work focused on supporting school system implementation of evidence-informed practices and expertise in areas of integrated health and learning (whole child), school mental health, and behavior assessment. Author of over 150 publications, Chafouleas regularly serves as a national presenter and invited speaker. She is a fellow in both the American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science, and has received numerous university awards for her scholarship and mentorship.  

Prior to becoming a university trainer, she worked as a school psychologist and school administrator in a variety of settings supporting the needs of children with behavior disorders.

Multi-Tiered Frameworks

Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model

Social-Emotional-Behavioral Assessment

School Mental Health

Trauma-Informed Schools

Whole Child

Integrated Health and Academics

Neag School of Education Faculty 

The UConn CSCH Podcast

CT proposal to limit school safety drills fails

'Feel Your Best Self' puppets help kids understand, express feelings

Florida rejected federal youth health survey for being too sexual, so it came up with its own

The power of puppets: New toolkit helps kids process "heavy feelings"

In one first-grade classroom, puppets teach children to 'shake out the yuck'

Want to become a ‘whole child’ school? Here are 2 sets of blueprints

‘What if it happens here?’: Why small Connecticut towns are embracing armed security in schools

Back to School Authority: Tips for adjusting to middle school

Stressed out at college? Here are five essential reads on how to take better care of your mental health

More tinsel and less tension: How to get the best out of the holiday season

Celebrating Holiday Traditions

Back To School 2021: Supporting The Social And Emotional Needs Of Students

A Behavioral Vaccine to Support Positive Classroom Behavior

A year into the pandemic, kids face struggles and some silver linings

Teen Suicide During COVID-19: The Second Crisis In Our Schools

Pandemic Hitting Families Of Those With Disabilities Harder

Face the Facts: COVID-19 Concerns for New School Year

U.S. teens envision fall school reopening during COVID-19 pandemic

Distance-bullying? Rates may be low, but reporting, investigating more complex, experts say

Schools are Discouraged from Restraining or Secluding Kids. Both Still Happen in Wisconsin -- But No One Can Say How Often

What is the WellSAT WSCC?

‘Starbucks classrooms,’ plus six other new approaches in education

Why Dention Sucks...And Manual Labour Is Better

Responding to COVID-19: Planning for Trauma-Informed Assessment in Schools

Improving Educators’ Use of Data-Driven  Problem-Solving to Reduce Disciplinary Infractions for Students with Emotional Disturbance

Exploring the national landscape of behavioral screening in US schools

Defining and Measuring Risk in Special Education and Early Intervention Research:  Considerations for Social, Emotional, & Behavioral Domains

The Whole Child: A Blueprint for Success.

Best practices in school-based services for addressing trauma.

Understanding Successes and Challenges in Caregiver HealthPromoting Self-Care.

Exploring the Status and Impact of School-Based Behavior Screening Practices in a National Sample: Implications for Systems, Policy, and Research

Project VIABLE-II: Unified validation of Direct Behavior Rating (DBR) in a problem-solving model

Enhancing Ci3T: Building Professional Capacity for High Fidelity Implementation to Support Students’ Educational Outcomes (Project ENHANCE)

Increasing Capacity for Partnerships Across Education and Health: Developing Guiding Blueprints for Implementation of Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Framework

uconns-sandra-chafouleas-and-feel-your-best-self-using-puppets-to-support-childrens-socialemotional-wellbeing

Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology

The COVID-19 pandemic took a toll on America's children -- parents lost jobs, kids weren't able to go to school, and they were told it was dangerous to see their friends. 

From a child's point of view, they seemed to have a lot, if not nearly everything, taken away, and many are still struggling today.

Recently, NPR took a deeper look at the challenges kids are facing and found one creative solution that's helping elementary school children to change negative thinking patterns, better understand others' motivations, and face fears that may fuel unhealthy avoidance behaviors.

 UConn expert Sandra Chafouleas, a  professor and school psychologist, is a co-creator of the new program -- called Feel Your Best Self -- which uses puppets to help children develop their social-emotional skills and well-being. 

During the pandemic, Wicks sent emails to researchers at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education, fishing for collaborators. She'd been wanting to put more of their work online. Her pitch: You want to help kids right now, and we have puppets. One of those emails went to Sandy Chafouleas, a UConn professor and trained school psychologist. Chafouleas was worried about all that extra stress on kids returning from the pandemic and that schools wouldn't be able to help them. "Teachers were stressed. Systems were stressed. Nobody had time to do professional learning to do something complex. That's just ridiculous to think that they could've," Chafouleas says. Denoya, the first-grade teacher at Natchaug Elementary, has seen it firsthand: Kids returned from the pandemic with missing or rusty social and emotional skills. They had trouble sharing, learning how to take turns and dealing with disappointment. "There's just things that they missed out on with not having that socialization, and so we need to find a place to teach it at school too," Denoya says.   Anticipating this need, Chafouleas and Wicks cooked up Feel Your Best Self. The idea was, these scripted puppet videos would be easy — and free — for schools to use, even if they don't have a trained mental health specialist on-hand. Which many don't. Or they have one, spread across hundreds and hundreds of kids. That includes Natchaug, where Principal Eben Jones has been unable to fill a vacant school psychologist position for the past two years. Jones says that hasn't stopped him and his staff from prioritizing this kind of emotional and social skill-building. "It is embedded daily," Jones says. "Every teacher has time in the morning to have a morning meeting. And in that morning meeting they build community, share a morning message, you know, play a team-building game and make sure kids are connected to each other." This school year, Denoya and her students are doing one FYBS lesson each week. The FYBS program has exploded over the past year, thanks in part to a flood of grant funding. What began last year at Natchaug with a small team performing virtually – and live, not recorded – in one classroom at a time, became a Herculean effort to script, cast and shoot not one but 12 unique videos, with multiple puppets and performers, that teachers and caregivers can access anytime online, at no cost – in both English and Spanish.  "Emily and I often feel like we're hanging on to the end of the caboose right now. This has scaled in ways that are unimaginable," says Chafouleas.  Sandra Chafouleas is a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and an expert on social-emotional well-being. She's available to speak with the media today -- just click her icon to arrange an interview.


UConn's Sandra Chafouleas and Feel Your Best Self -- using puppets to support children's social-emotional well-being

uconn-expert-explains-how-to-get-the-best-from-this-holiday-season

While this holiday season might feel a little more like the good 'ole times for a lot of families, others are scaling back plans amidst a COVID resurgence. 

Regardless of how we choose to celebrate, for many this season also brings stress, pressure, and family drama alongside merriment and holiday cheer. But UConn's experts are here to help you get the best out of the holidays this year -- educational psychologist Dr. Sandra Chafouleas offers some tips in a recent interview with CNN:  Whenever and however you celebrate, having a holiday season is important for wellbeing, Chafouleas said. Holidays set aside time for relaxation, reflection and reliable traditions -- a trio that has become increasingly important as the world has gotten more chaotic and less predictable, Chafouleas said. Whether you approach them from a spiritual, social or cultural perspective, celebrating holidays can offer a "super big dose" of positive emotions like joy, gratitude, serenity, hope, pride and love, she added. Holiday gatherings can also be a mixed bag of emotions. "The way I do things versus the way we've always done things -- that's just a concoction for some disagreements," Chafouleas said. .................... Small changes can make a big difference, both experts said. For Chafouleas, it can look like identifying which part of the traditions feel like obligations rather than celebrations. "I used to make a million cookies with my kids, especially when they were younger, and I just don't enjoy that anymore, but my girls really like to do that," Chafouleas said. The work and the mess afterward started to take away from the joy of the traditions. "So, I stepped away from that. I keep it simple," Chafouleas said. "They do it, and I get to eat them and participate in the experience of that ritual without have to be the one responsible."   Sandra Chafouleas is a UConn Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and an expert on social-emotional well-being. She's available to lend her holiday ritual expertise to your reporting -- just click her icon to arrange an interview today.


UConn expert explains how to get the best from this holiday season

trumps-reaction-to-defeat-further-confirms-urgency-for-school-focus-on-socialemotional-skills

Sandra Chafouleas, psychologist and behavioral health expert from the University of Connecticut, weighs in:

Imagine what would happen if a preschooler didn’t “use their words” when they got upset about sharing, instead stomping around yelling while adults simply observed in silence. Think about what the school climate would feel like if a student punched another during recess while others watched without seeking help.    Now consider the actions – and inactions – by Donald Trump on January 6 as the electoral vote counts occurred at the U.S. Capitol. Those behaviors show a desperate need for social emotional learning. According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), social emotional learning involves five core competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Trump did not demonstrate these competencies when the election didn’t go the way he wanted.   Connecting these school scenarios and Trump’s behaviors is not intended to contribute to the ever-mounting list of recommended consequences that could result from his fueling the insurrection that our nation has just experienced. It does bear noting, however, that if Trump were a Black teenager, he most certainly would have received exclusionary disciplinary action such as suspension and perhaps even expulsion from school.  The purpose in connecting the two scenarios is to draw energies toward actions that propel us forward in bridging a divided nation. The responsibility for forward movement falls to future generations, which means it is critical that we pay attention to what happens in schools right now. We need to demand that policies and practice — and necessary resources — are put in place to strengthen school capacity to support students on their path to holding responsibility for democracy.  Many excellent resources have quickly appeared to assist educators in teaching about the insurrection. Discussion guides are available to facilitate defining key terms, contrasting events through a social justice lens, and comparing justifications for action using fact checking. Other resources have been released that help adults talk about violence and support emotional safety of kids.  What seems to be less prominent, however, is a direct connection to the social, emotional, and behavioral skills that we have just witnessed are missing. Education systems have begun the work of acknowledging their historic roles in contributing to exclusion, inequity, and intolerance of differences. Educators are working hard to turn the tide toward promising alternative approaches. Prominent among those approaches is a focus on social emotional skills. In either classroom scenario above, educators would be jumping into discussion about what supports are needed to address student needs.  Social and emotional well-being fulfills us throughout every stage of life – integrating those skills should be in all that we do as adults to model, teach, and give feedback to our children. Of course schools must teach academic content areas and have high expectations, but there is tremendous potential to increase capacity to embed exploration, active practice, and positive feedback about social and emotional skills within each corner of the day.  As one example, history professor Kellie Carter Jackson writes about challenges in teaching violence in political history. The author describes the need to question how political violence should be labeled, which could reveal an expression of unmet need by marginalized people. Learning through this analysis offers social and emotional parallels, such as examining biases, recognizing emotions, and examining integrity.  As another, Facing History and Ourselves offers a classroom resource specific to the insurrection. Activities reference principles of social and emotional learning, such as steps for educators to practice self-awareness and relationship skills by examining their own emotions and perspectives. Student self-management and social awareness builds through reflection activity that builds civic agency. All of these examples offer incredible opportunity in social and emotional learning that could be advanced with more explicit connection. Entrenching social and emotional learning within the school day beyond this immediate teachable moment also is needed to enable sustained effort.  CASEL identifies adults as key to social emotional strategies that will maintain safe, supportive, and equitable learning environments for this moment in history. To do so requires a strong collection of social, emotional, and behavioral education policies and practices. Responsibility for urgently resourcing this collection rests within each of us, right now, to ensure future generations who can and do take part in a resilient democratic nation.   Dr. Chafouleas is licensed psychologist and Distinguished Professor, with expertise in school psychology and school mental health at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. If you’re a reporter looking to speak with Dr. Chafouleas about this topic – let us help. Simply click on her icon to arrange an interview today.




Trump’s reaction to defeat further confirms urgency for school focus on social-emotional skills

Neag School of Education faculty member Sandra Chafouleas

Listen as Sandra Chafouleas,  Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut, discusses the importance of progress monitoring in behavior and how it differs from screening and diagnostic assessment.

Why is behavior progress monitoring important?

Think about the Link between Learning and Health: Schools as the Hub for Whole Child Success

CSCH Live Talk - Sandra Chafouleas, PhD

An overview of the NEEDs2 Project

To learn about our findings visit: https://youtu.be/g6nbhZw_wB8 

Read more at needs2.education.uconn.edu

NEEDs2 Project Overview

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