A sample of 483 school-based mental health professionals completed a survey about the training they have received related to conducting bullying assessments in schools, competence in conducting an assessment of bullying, and the bullying assessment methods they used. Results indicate that school counselors were usually informed about incidents of bullying more frequently than school psychologists. Whereas the majority of school-based mental health professionals surveyed reported some level of competence in using assessment tools for bullying, few reported using empirically based instruments to assess for bullying. This article discusses results and implications, namely, the need to identify clinically meaningful tools for the assessment of bullying and the need to adopt more formal and empirically based methods of assessment in schools.

A sample of 483 school-based mental health professionals completed a survey about the training they have received related to conducting bullying assessments in schools, competence in conducting an assessment of bullying, and the bullying assessment methods they used. Results indicate that school counselors were usually informed about incidents of bullying more frequently than school psychologists. Whereas the majority of school-based mental health professionals surveyed reported some level of competence in using assessment tools for bullying, few reported using empirically based instruments to assess for bullying. This article discusses results and implications, namely, the need to identify clinically meaningful tools for the assessment of bullying and the need to adopt more formal and empirically based methods of assessment in schools.

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