As a multi-lingual and multi-cultural psychologist, counselor and teacher in school districts and
educational institutions in the San
Francisco Bay Area, California, Hawaii, Michigan, Washington, DC and
internationally in Thailand and China, I have been responsible for
providing, collaborating and coordinating services between general, special
educational and mental health environments for a wide range of school settings
from pre-school, elementary, middle and senior high schools to university
classrooms. I have worked with
extraordinarily diverse populations of students coming from local and distant
cultures from all socioeconomic levels worldwide. My tenure in all school systems is focused on
serving students and families at high risk for school failure. My role as psychologist and teacher is to
identify the strengths and resources available to individual students and their
teachers and caregivers as they provide support to the student.
One of my principal roles involves building effective
coalitions of support to help ensure students' future academic successes. This
process of resource identification and support provision often involves the
skilled processes of collaboration, consultation and outreach – to facilitate
and create real support and successful bridges between the students and their
academic, social and emotional caregivers at all levels of school, student and
family communities. I often collaborate
with and directly teach effective strategies and techniques to teachers and
parents to help them raise student performance.
In these roles, I am a positive "change agent" in the educational
systems where I work to increase student success.
In these roles, I provide skilled services in evidence-based,
psychologically sound approaches and interventions along with highly developed
specific skills and understandings of human behavior, cognition, development,
evaluation, intelligence, learning theories and related models of human
performance along with skills in curriculum development. I have applied my expertise in these areas to
help adapt and accommodate theories and practices to the specific needs of
individual students and their learning styles.
As my experiences and skills have grown in the complex process of
improving student achievement and accomplishment, I have become skilled in an
eclectic variety of methods of educational, collaboration and therapeutic
services. These ranges of counseling,
consultation and teaching services relate to skills in understanding theory and
applied practice for: Behavioral change,
Counseling, Consultation, Optimal learning, Emotional Intelligence, Mental
Health, Moral Development, Social Development, and Treatment with student
success as the focus for all stakeholders.
As a regular part of my
duties, I collaborate with, supervise and train new and experienced teachers,
counselors and psychologists in optimal aspects of learning theory, behavior
and elements of mental health in the context of what is most helpful for their
students/ clients. I have trained new
therapists to work within a broad prevention intervention model (The California
Primary Intervention Project) as part of the statewide Early Mental Health
Initiative grant. As appropriate, I
counsel individual and small groups of students as needed. As a regular part of my practice, I consult
with teachers, staff and families to enhance students' success in the regular
classrooms, classes for the "gifted" and also special educational
settings. I regularly conduct initial,
transfer and triennial psychological evaluations for a diverse population of
identified students who may be experiencing a wide range of learning, behavior
and adjustment problems. I regularly
help student assistance teams to develop effective plans of behavioral change
that focus on a wide array of possible, healthy robust outcomes. A primary focus of my work with all school
agencies is to facilitate student success and prevent student failure in a wide
range of settings. At Oakland Unified
School District, for example, I was a leader in developing intra-departmental
forums for monthly staff development activities in the department of
psychological services. These forums
acted as an arena for psychologists to share their knowledge, expertise,
techniques and interests for the betterment of the department and increased
student achievement in the district as a whole.
As a leader there, I presented on theories of assessment, cognition,
emotional intelligence, intelligence, learning, memory, meta-memory strategies,
social-emotional learning, and the relationships between methods of improving
student focus to facilitate student achievement and optimal performance for
individuals and groups.
Check out Dr. Daniel Murphy's Photo Album.
Check out Dr. Daniel Murphy's Photo Album.
