“The Child First and Always”
Primary Children’s Medical Center, Salt Lake City, UT
Thanks for visiting my website and for your interest in learning more about the work of my research team.
I knew I wanted to be a child psychologist after taking two semesters of H.S. psychology including a practicum in an early childhood education center. I found out about the field of school psychology from my professors a few years later.
I completed my undergraduate degree (B.S. in Child Psychology) at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities while working full-time for the Minnesota Twin Family study. I was a psychophysiology lab assistant who worked with 11- and 17-year old twins who visited campus as a part of a day-long battery of assessments. I completed a doctoral degree in School Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in School Psychology in 1997. My 2000-hour predoctoral internship was completed at the APA-accredited Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City, UT. Prior to coming to MSU, I was a faculty member at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK from 1997-2000.
Currently, I am a Professor and Health Service Psychologist with specialized training in school psychology. My academic appointment is within the APA-accredited and NASP-approved School Psychology Doctoral Program at Michigan State University. I am Licensed Psychologist (LP) in Michigan and Iowa and a Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP).
The primary focus of my research, teaching, and service is on scientific mental health practices within school-aged populations. This data-based approach to research and practice emphasizes equitable and effective educational and mental health services for children experiencing challenges at school, within the home, and/or in the community.
My research interests are focused on the utility of medical and psychological interventions for school-aged children’s behavior in educational and other learning contexts. My recent lines of research include the assessment/treatment of social anxiety/selective mutism, caregiver-facilitated mental health interventions that reduce barriers to treatment access/utilization (e.g., online, self-administered, disruptive innovations), the psychological impact of target hardening (schools), and school psychopharmacology. For the past 15+ years, I have owned a consulting practice called Child and Adolescent Psychological Services, PLC (CAPS, PLC) that focuses on mental health assessment, consultation, and intervention in school-aged populations.
Since 2007, I have worked closely with state-level partners to assist in data-based decision making (evaluation/research) around a number of evidence-based mental health practice initiatives (e.g., mental health first aid training, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral treatment, child-parent psychotherapy, parent support partner services, wraparound services, interventions for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, infant and infant/early childhood mental health consultation) being carried out within schools and community-based mental health service agencies across the state. The last four years, I have been working collaboratively with the Michigan State Police Office of School Safety to develop training materials related to children’s mental health and school safety. In recent years, I also worked with MDHHS to explore juvenile justice mental health diversion and issues of overrepresentation of youth from specific subpopulations in the court system.
I am especially committed to helping the field of school psychology address its chronic and problematic shortage of practitioners and trainers/faculty. We must increase the diversity of school psychology scientist-scholar-practitioners to better match the diversity of children in our schools and communities. I welcome doctoral students into our program and onto my research team regardless of race, religion, gender identification, sexual orientation, age, or disability status. Within my advisor role, I am fully committed to supporting doctoral advisees through the intensity and difficulties associated with training to become a health service psychologist with specialized skills in school psychology.
The focus of my PhD-level advising is consistent with the College of Education’s mission “to prepare leaders who address cognitive, physical and emotional well‐being at the individual, community and societal levels by engaging in high‐quality research, teaching and outreach that makes an impact and promotes the public good.” My advising philosophy and the emphasis of my research teams efforts overlay the College of Education Strategic Plan with respect to health service psychologist preparation (with a specialization in school psychology), leadership, health/wellness, communities/contexts, social justice/equity, and research methods/data analytics.
To learn more about the diverse array of careers available to you in the field of education, please see the book my Dad (a long time teacher and school administrator) and I wrote titled 101 Careers in Education.
To learn more about a range of professional and university positions available within the school psychology discipline, please see one of my favorite discipline-specific books titled Handbook of University and Professional Careers in School Psychology edited by Drs. Floyd and Eckert.
If you already know the field of school psychology is the career path you are on and are currently looking for an inclusive, caring, vibrant, and well-supported university to complete your graduate studies in school psychology, I hope you will consider MSU. MSU is tied for 8th in producing the highest number of current faculty (N=9) within the 70 APA-accredited school psychology/combined programs in the U.S. (Carlson, Thomson, Siroky, Yohannan, Darr, & Haggerty, 2016).
About half of my doctoral advisee graduates choose to become trainers/faculty/researchers (e.g., Eastern University, UMass-Boston, Northern Illinois University, Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, University of Texas-Austin Dell Medical Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, University of Hartford), while the other half choose to become leaders in the field (e.g., DeVos Children’s Hospital, Thriving Minds, Sheldon, TX Intermediate School District, University of Michigan Hospital and Clinics). Readiness for a range of opportunities at the point of graduation reflects the value that my advisement and our program places on high quality scientist-practitioner training in health service psychology, with a specialization in school psychology.
You can learn more about me and the work that I do by clicking on the menu at the top of this page and scrolling to pages of interest. In addition, you can find a number of my journal publications and other professional writing within my Research Gate profile.
A recently featured article in the The Conversation/Washington Post (2019):
Keeping Students Safe is a Growth Industry Struggling to Fulfill its Mission
and a related publication within the New Educator (2020) titled Faculty Viewpoint: Keeping Schools Safe From Violence
“Ask the expert” contributions to articles across a range of web-based sources:
Expert Insight on Spending and Mental Health (November 20, 2023) in J. Marter article “How your mental health impacts your spending”
Expert Insight on Debt and Mental Health (March 5, 2022) in S. East article “How Debt and Financial Stress Affects Your Mental Health and Ways to Cope”
Expert Insight on Bullying Problems in Schools (October 11, 2021) in A. McCann article “States with the Biggest Bullying Problems”
Book Publications:
John S. Carlson, Ph.D. 