This article provides an overview of a special issue of Psychology in the Schools that examines the implementation of the Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative in seven local communities. An overview of the SS/HS Initiative is provided. Critical lessons learned from the seven sites are discussed with a focus on the special role that school psychologists can play in implementing these complex violence prevention programs.

Rural Underpinnings for Resiliency and Linkages (RURAL) is an example of a Safe Schools/Healthy Students (SS/HS) project. RURAL provides services to children and families in a rural Kansas county. The county's rates of juvenile alcohol and illicit drug use are higher than state averages. The RURAL project was designed to enhance existing partnerships among three school districts, the local community mental health center, law enforcement, the regional prevention center, and Fort Hays State University. A significant number of evidence‐based strategies were implemented in the schools and community in a short period of time. Using a public health approach to increase school safety and promote healthy behaviors, RURAL introduced strategies designed to provide universal prevention for the school population, early intervention for at‐risk children and families, and intensive services for those with the greatest needs. Services were provided to students (preschool–young adults) and their families. School psychologists held key roles in the development, implementation, and management of the project. Preliminary evaluation findings are presented, and the importance of local process and outcome evaluation is discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 531–547, 2003.

School phobia has been frequently discussed since the 1930's, yet there has been little agreement regarding etiology or appropriate treatment. Although the incidence is only approximately 2% of the school aged population (Kennedy, 1965, Millman, Schaefer, & Cohen, 1981), there has been much attention paid to this behavior in the literature. There is little agreement regarding the demographics, personality characteristics or family structure of the school phobic. Popular theories were psychoanalytically oriented in the past, and there has been considerable debate that school phobia is actually a form of separation anxiety. Current explanations are more behaviorally inclined, yet there is still no consensus. Treatment recommendations have followed the same pattern of emphasis being initially psychoanalytic and more recently behaviorist in nature. Although it is agreed that treatment should be rapidly initiated, there are no \state of the art\ treatments. The lack of adequate, empirical, and comparative research is discussed. There is a need for practical guidelines for school professionals in order to provide rapid and effective treatment. A Treatment Guideline and Decision Matrices were developed in order to provide a frame work for school personnel to use in identifying, evaluating, and treating school phobia, were found to be very valuable in identifying school phobia, for collecting and organizing data, and for developing comprehensive treatments. Suggestions for further research were also discussed.

Although previous research has shown that EMR children can be trained to use mnemonic techniques, they are unable to spontaneously transfer this training to dissimilar tasks. In the present study, 18 EMR children were divided into two equal groups. The IM group was trained to use a mnemonic/meta-cognitive strategy for a PA task, and the C group received no training. After training, both groups were tested for their recall of PA (Maintenance), MA (Near Generalization), and FR (Far Generalization) items immediately after training (Immediate Test) and two weeks later (Delayed Test). The IM group recalled significantly more and studied longer for the Maintenance and Near Generalization tasks, but neither group performed differently on the Far Generalization task. Neither group's performance or study times changed significantly between the Immediate and Delayed tests. The IM group used the trained strategy for Maintenance and Near Generalization tasks, but they tended to discard the use of the strategy for the Far Generalization task. However, it was noted that two IM Ss demonstrated Far Generalization and used the strategy for all tasks. The implications of this study for educational applications and future research considerations were discussed.

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