A Practical Guide to Implementing School-Based Interventions for Adolescents with ADHD

This innovative volume details counseling interventions for secondary students with ADHD and its associated academic and conduct problems, particularly focusing on youth at risk for developing serious disruptive behaviors. It addresses the continuing debate over counseling for youths with ADHD by identifying key elements common to reputable therapies and suggesting a framework for their successful implementation. The core of the book discusses the Challenging Horizons Program (CHP), a behavior- and solutions-focused approach to counseling adolescents with ADHD that has been studied extensively for more than 15 years. Based on the quality of research, the CHP has been included in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices maintained by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Excerpts from actual sessions illustrate typical therapist-client interactions in the CHP, and sample modules from the program’s treatment literature expand the book’s descriptions of effective hands-on interventions.

Counseling skills featured in this book include:

• Bridging the research-into-practice divide.
• Establishing a therapeutic alliance with students with ADHD.
• Developing and implementing interventions for memory, organization, and planning.
• Enhancing young clients’ social skills.
• Enlisting family members in the intervention process.
• Working directly with teachers to improve student behaviors.

A Practical Guide to Implementing School-Based Interventions for Adolescents with ADHD is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians and related professionals, and graduate students in such disciplines as school and clinical child psychology, social work, educational psychology, psychotherapy and counseling, and learning and instruction.

Brandon K. Schultz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at East Carolina University (ECU). Dr. Schultz has a background in school counseling, receiving a Master’s in Education from Frostburg State University in Maryland, before attaining a doctorate in school psychology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. From 2002 to 2013, Dr. Schultz provided school psychological services and clinical supervision during several research projects examining the Challenging Horizons Program, first at James Madison University and then at Ohio University. Currently, Dr. Schultz teaches in the pediatric school psychology doctoral program at ECU and directs the School Behavior Consultation Lab. His current research focuses on evidence-based program implementation strategies in secondary schools.

Steven W. Evans is the co-director of the Center for Intervention Research in Schools at Ohio University and professor of psychology. Dr. Evans graduated from Case Western University with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and then completed a clinical internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic (WPIC). Following his fellowship he joined the faculty at WPIC for eight years prior to going to James Madison University and then Ohio University. Before earning his doctoral degree he was a special education teacher in a public elementary school. Service to national organizations includes having been a member of the Professional Advisory Board of CHADD and a member of the advisory board of the Center for School Mental Health Assistance. Dr. Evans is a fellow in the American Psychological Association and the CHP is listed as an evidence-based program on SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices. Dr. Evans is the founding editor of the journal School Mental Health: A Multidisciplinary Research and Practice Journal (Springer Publishing).