Audience

School-based mental health providers, classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, and professionals in the field of psychology and education

Presenter Name(s)

Jason Kaplan, Ph.D., NCSP, Licensed Psychologist, Licensed School Psychologist

Presenter Bio(s)

Jason Kaplan, Ph.D., is the Chair and Associate Professor in the School Psychology Department at William James College. He is a MA Licensed Psychologist and Health Service Provider (HSP), Nationally Certified School Psychologist (NCSP), and MA Licensed School and Educational Psychologist. He has been in education for over 20 years, working across a range of educational and clinical settings, including as a teacher for students with learning and emotional disabilities and as a school psychologist K-12. Dr. Kaplan also consults with various Massachusetts schools and conducts workshops on evidence-based counseling practices, best practices in supervision, violence prevention in schools, trauma, and ethical and professional issues in education. Additionally, Dr. Kaplan co-authors an article and a book chapter on Understanding Learning Disabilities: Implications for Teachers and Parents and Home-school Partnerships with Culturally Diverse Families: Challenges and Solutions for School Personnel. His clinical interests involve supervision and mentorship, systems change, including integrating social and emotional learning (SEL), and assessing and treating children with learning and emotional disabilities.   

Description

In an era of increasingly complex, evolving, and unpredictable needs, the critical importance of effective school-based mental health counseling cannot be overstated. Schools are not only educational institutions but also crucial spaces for mental health intervention and student development. Consequently, ensuring that school-based mental health professionals are equipped with culturally responsive, evidence-based counseling approaches is more critical than ever.

A central goal of school counseling is to support students’ holistic well-being. In this context, Positive Psychology (PP) and Strength-Based Approaches (SBAs) offer powerful, research-backed frameworks for meeting today’s student populations’ evolving and dynamic needs. Unlike some traditional views of psychology, Positive psychology is a scientific field that focuses on positive emotions, characteristics, and experiences that enable individuals and systems to thrive. Positive Psychology focuses on what is right with an individual to boost character strength and foster personal growth. 

Traditional clinical approaches have often focused on deficits, pathology, and dysfunction, but the growing body of research in positive psychology suggests that focusing on strengths and well-being fosters resilience and sustainable change. Strength-based approaches, rooted in positive psychology, emphasize individuals’ innate capabilities and encourage growth through constructive engagement with their own strengths. By focusing on positive emotions, meaningful life experiences, and character strengths, counselors can empower students to navigate challenges with a sense of agency and optimism.

Research from positive psychology provides a viable direction for counseling interventions that go beyond the problem-deficit model and look at what is going well. Integrating positive psychology practices into counseling sessions can profoundly impact students and mental health providers. By incorporating positive psychology principles into counseling, counselors can enhance their ability to empower their students, increase engagement, and foster positive relationships. Strength-based approaches further empower individuals by recognizing and leveraging their unique skills and capabilities to promote self-efficacy, motivation, and lasting change.

In this presentation, participants will have the opportunity to explore the use of positive psychology in counseling and be provided with practical strategies for promoting positive outcomes in individual, group, and classroom sessions. Among many interventions that will be explored, the Virtues in Action (VIA) questionnaire, which transcends cultures, is one tool that will be discussed.  The VIA questionnaire can facilitate discussions about character strengths and virtues, leading to increased self-awareness and self-improvement. The VIA is a self-report tool that measures an individual’s character strengths and emphasizes the importance of identifying and cultivating positive qualities in individuals. By understanding and building on strengths, counselors can better support their students to promote positive outcomes.

Synchronous / Asynchronous

Synchronous

Location

Live via Zoom

Dates & Times

March 20, 2026; 11:30am – 2:30pm

PDPs

3 PDPs

Credit

n/a

Cost

$200 ACCEPT members/$240 non-members

Team Rates Available

Registration Deadline

March 6, 2026