In 1991, Susan Jacobs, Ph.D., noticed a need to teach psychology graduate students about legal and ethical issues in their field. So, she published the first edition of “Ethics and Law for School Psychologists.”
The eighth edition of the textbook was just published, and it includes new information important to law and ethics of school psychologists.
Dawn Decker, Ph.D., has worked with Jacobs since 2005. She has collaborated with Jacobs on the sixth, seventh, and eighth editions of the textbook.
Decker said the textbook supports new standards from the National Association for school psychologists and from the American Psychological Association.
She said, "So we support standards from the National Association for school psychologists and for from the American Psychological Association. So the standards get incorporated with into the textbook and every revision, we also work on updating the literature, looking at areas that are current, where there might be current issues or current issues for practicing school psychologists and how training could better support you know how the textbook could better support some of those gray areas."
Decker said, "So, for example, the most recent version, we've looked more at Telehealth and some of the ethical dilemmas surrounding Telehealth and recommendations for that. As well as some of the preparing working with culturally and linguistically diverse students and how school psychologists can support that in the field as well."
Since the publication of the textbook, school psychology programs nationwide have been using the book as a resource.
Decker said, "this is the only textbook that systematically looks at the legal requirements, ethical code, the literature and like legal precedent as well like court cases just seem to synthesize all the information together to help inform practice."
According to Decker, this textbook is one of the only ones of its kind in the nation.
