Group Working to Fill More School Psychologist Positions in Wisconsin

Wednesday, November 1st, 2023 -- 12:01 PM

(Natalie Eilbert, Green Bay Press-Gazette) Every year, 60 to 70 school psychologist positions in Wisconsin go unfilled.

According to Natalie Eilbert with the Green Bay Press-Gazette, that's based on the most recent data collected by the Wisconsin School Psychologists Association. And it's a good reminder why Katie Eklund, co-director of the School Mental Health Collaborative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, spends her time focusing on workforce initiatives.

Back in the early aughts when she was getting into the profession, she was up against a competitive pool of candidates. But the pool has drained in recent years. "When I entered the field, it was more difficult to get a job.

A lot of positions were filled, and it was similarly competitive to teaching," said Eklund, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. "Now we're in a much different space."

Eklund and her team at the Department of Educational Psychology have been studying the reasons behind the shrinking pipeline. And some of that, they've learned, has to do with the availability of graduate and training programs throughout the country.

At the same time, higher education is expensive, sometimes to a prohibitive degree. The timing couldn't be worse in terms of need. Children and youth struggle at record numbers with anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Further, nearly 20% of school psychologists plan on leaving the field in the next five years due to administrative pressures and another 20% plan to retire in the next five years, according to research from the National Association of School Psychologists.

To address this problem, the School of Educational Psychology has recently been awarded a four-year, $10.4 million federal contract from the U.S. Department of Education.

Its years-long task is to expand and improve the country's workforce of school psychologists, school social workers and school counselors. The grant establishes a program called Mental Health Evaluation, Training, Research, and Innovation Center for Schools, referred to by its acronym METRICS.

It was written in collaboration with other researchers and trainers from the University of South Florida, the University of Iowa, and the University of California Santa Barbara.

The goal, according to Stephen Kilgus, a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, is to bring a larger and more diverse group of mental health practitioners to the field.

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