Transitioning to telehealth during COVID-19: Challenges and opportunities for trauma-focused school psychology.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on our society and economy, including devastating impacts on marginalized populations. It has also placed significant demands on health service psychology training programs and their trainees. Almost overnight, trainees had to quickly learn and implement best practices in telehealth, and training programs had to navigate short and long-term challenges, all while ensuring the safety and well-being of trainees, trainers, clients, and our community. The goal of the current project is to describe the challenges and opportunities our trainees and training program encountered when transitioning to telehealth during the early phases of the pandemic, with a specific focus on those trainees completing the stress and trauma track within our school psychology doctoral program. Four total case studies by three trainees at different levels within the stress and trauma track and the program director are presented. We conclude with lessons learned and advice for other health service psychology training programs, especially those that train health service psychologists focused on working with children and youth who have experienced trauma. Public Significance StatementOur case studies and lessons learned during the transition to telehealth at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that health service psychology training programs must develop competencies in delivering evidence-based interventions, including those focused on stress and trauma, via both inperson and telehealth modalities. They would also benefit from broadening the role of school psychologists to prepare for advances in technology and assume leadership during crisis events that affect the well-being of their communities.