Bernie Stein. The Handbook of International School Psychology. Editor: Shane R Jimerson, Thomas D Oakland, Peter T Farrell. Sage Publications. 2007.
Context of School Psychology
The State of Israel, established in 1948 as a homeland for the Jewish people, has absorbed immigrants from many cultures and is now a unique multicultural society. Israel is located in the Middle East, bordered on the west by the Mediterranean Sea, by Lebanon on the north, by Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank on the east, and by Egypt on the southwest. The geography includes desert in the south, low coastal plains, and central mountains. Israel is 20,770 square kilometers with a population in 2006 of 7.1 million: 81% Jews and 19% Arabs. The gross domestic product for 2005 was US$141 billion, US$20,800 per capita. Public services, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, tourism, high-tech, and commerce represent the primary employment opportunities.
The total school-age population in 2006 was 1,379,897: 784,000 in elementary school (Grades 1-6), 254,400 in junior high school (Grades 7-9), and 346,765 in high school (Grades 10-12). There are 4,395 schools, 51,871 classrooms, and 124,000 teachers in Israel. In addition, 481,000 3- to 5-year-olds attend kindergarten. School attendance in Israel is mandatory from age 5 through 16 and free through age 18. For children with special needs, education is free for ages 3 through 21. A recently enacted law extends free education to all children from the age of 3; however, due to budgetary constraints, its implementation has been confined, for the present, to some of the poorer urban areas. Preschool education comprises a network of institutions that includes 481,000 children ages 2 through 6 (in 2005-2006) attending municipal, public, and private kindergartens and day care institutions (80% in public kindergartens). Increasing emphasis on preschool education was prompted by strong interest in addressing developmental problems during early childhood. The early childhood education system aims to establish a shared foundation that includes developing language and cognitive skills, promoting learning and creative abilities, and nurturing social and motor skills. Both school psychologists and developmental psychologists have played a major role in lobbying parliamentary committees to pass a law setting the age of 3 as the beginning of compulsory education in the country.
Maintaining educational institutions is the joint responsibility of the state and local education authorities. The state pays the teachers’ salaries and covers the cost of the physical infrastructure, whereas the local authorities are responsible for school services, including school psychologists. Jewish parents can choose schools affiliated with one of three recognized educational trends: state (57.6%), state-religious (18.8%), or ultra-Orthodox (23.6%). The state system is equivalent to the standard educational system in most countries, whereas the state-religious system adds hours to the state curriculum devoted to the study of religious texts and to prayer. In the ultra-Orthodox system, nonreligious subjects are a very limited part of the curriculum, and most of the time is devoted to the study of religious texts. Arab children are educated in a separate network, where Hebrew is taught as a second language. Few educational institutions cater to both Jewish and Arab students.
The Compulsory Education Law was enacted in 1949, the year following the establishment of the State of Israel. Amendments enacted since then include a prohibition against discrimination on grounds of ethnic origin and a prohibition against discrimination in acceptance, placement, and advancement of pupils, as well as a prohibition against punishing pupils for parental actions or omissions. (An English summary of the most important laws relating to education in Israel can be found online at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Education/edlaws.html)
The educational system includes both formal and informal frameworks. Formal education includes institutions at the preschool, primary, secondary (junior high and high school), post-secondary, and university levels. Informal education includes social and youth activities in various educational spheres that take place after school hours, such as extracurricular activities, assistance for children experiencing learning difficulties in school, sports activities, youth movements, and adult education. Of all pupils in high school, 95.4% complete 12 years of education, and 56% sit for the matriculation examinations at various levels. The matriculation certificate is a prerequisite for university entrance (together with a standardized test). The average class size is identified in the Ministry of Education publications as 25.5 in elementary schools, 31 in junior high schools, and 26.2 in high schools. However, these figures are misleading, because the average includes small special education classes (usually 8-12 pupils); thus, many elementary through high school classes have 35 to 40 pupils.
The Special Education Law was enacted in 1988. Although the state had provided special education services to children with special needs since its establishment in 1948, in 1988 a law was adopted that ensured these services to all individuals, ages 3 through 21 years, who require them. The disabilities covered by the law are deafness, blindness, children in hospital, mild to severe retardation, behavior disorders, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, autism, delayed language development, and mental illness. Approximately 2% of pupils diagnosed with special needs now attend separate schools, pointing to a significant drop from 8% in the 1970s. The change reflects the policy that the Ministry of Education has adopted over the past 20 years, seeking to provide inclusive education for pupils with special needs and keeping the numbers attending separate institutions to a minimum. In the 2004-2005 academic year, 17,000 students received special education services in separate settings, about 25,000 students received special education services through local support and resource centers, and the remainder of students received special services within regular classrooms. (An English summary of the law can be found online at http://www.kinneret.co.il/benzev/yacov/spedlaw.htm)
Much of the work of the school psychologist is mandated by the Law of Special Education, and most of the pupils with special needs will only become eligible for help after undergoing a psychological evaluation. The school psychologist is a mandatory member in various statutory committees that decide on the placement of students. A child experiencing problems at school is tested by a school psychologist and, if deemed eligible for special education services, is referred to a local placement committee that also includes a school psychologist. The committees are instructed by the Ministry of Education to give priority to placing the child in a recognized school that is not a special education school. A child with special needs, a parent, or a representative of a public organization can appeal a decision of the placement committee within 21 days. The Ministry of Education must then appoint a seven-member board of appeal, which also includes a senior school psychologist, to confirm or overturn the placement Committee’s original decision. Special education laws have been extensively revised over the past 5 years, partly in response to parental advocacy demanding that children with special needs be included in regular classrooms. The Law of Inclusion, enacted in 2002, gives parents considerable rights with respect to placement and creates a multilevel hearing system. Decisions about special needs at the school level are made at a school-based, statutory committee meeting convened by the school principal, involving the school psychologist, who submits a psychological evaluation, as well as parents and teachers.
Origin, History, and Current Status of School Psychology
Local development of school psychology began when the first Center for Educational Psychology was established in Tel Aviv in 1936, under the auspices of the local municipality, and became the model for similar services elsewhere in Israel. The primary, and often the only, focus of their work was testing and placement. After 1948, freelance psychologists were employed by the Ministry of Education to travel throughout the country to test children experiencing difficulties at school and refer them to special education frameworks. The major thrust to the development of a statewide framework came in 1962, with the establishment of the Psychological and Counseling Service (known by its Hebrew acronym, SHEFI) at the Ministry of Education. Besides establishing the new profession of school counselor, this new department at the Ministry assumed the task of developing, planning, and implementing the work of school psychologists. The division of psychological and counseling services included the position of chief psychologist and established a crucial strategic decision: School psychology services would be provided under municipal auspices, to ensure that psychologists were employed by the local community and could serve as child advocates, rather than by the schools or by the Ministry of Education to serve the needs of the institution. This policy was mainly inspired by several Israeli psychologists who had recently returned from pursuing doctoral studies at American universities and had been influenced by two main trends: Gerald Caplan’s ideas of preventive community psychiatry (Caplan, 1964) and Emory Cowen’s Primary Mental Health Project (Cowen, Gesten, & Wilson, 1979). These theories introduced concepts of community mental health and a systemic approach to intervention in schools, in contrast with the views endorsed by the practitioners of the time, most of whom had trained in Europe before World War II. A major influence on an entire generation of young professionals was that of Kalman Benyamini, who served as the first chief psychologist when the Psychological and Counseling Service was set up, initiated the first courses in school psychology at the Hebrew University, and took over as director of the school psychology service in Jerusalem, implementing a systemic approach to work in schools. (For a comprehensive review of psychology in Israel, see Levinson, 1977.)
Much has changed since the first article on school psychology in Israel was published in Psychology in the Schools in International Perspective, Volume 2 (Ziv, 1977). The population of the country has almost doubled, and a substantial wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union has had a dramatic impact on the society. The school population has increased and so has the number of pupils in need of psychological intervention. Children of immigrants from Ethiopia and some of the Asian ex-Soviet Republics who came from widely different cultural backgrounds, and many without any prior schooling, posed special problems to teachers, challenging their tolerance of cultural differences. Schools have played a major role in the acculturation process, especially in the teaching of a new language, and psychologists were significant in helping the educational system deal with pupils manifesting learning, social, and emotional difficulties. Together with the difficulties involved in integrating an increasing and varied population, the country has also faced an ongoing conflict with the Palestinians during this period and has suffered sporadic waves of terrorism, which has left many physical and psychological scars in all sectors of society. School psychological services have grown proportionately to the population and, over the past 15 years, have more than doubled. At present, 270 municipal and regional services in the country employ 2,100 school psychologists.
The Psychological and Counseling Service currently budgets and supervises 270 school psychology services throughout the country. Financing is the shared responsibility of the Ministry of Education (two thirds) and the local municipalities (one third). There are 1,100 positions filled by 2,100 school psychologists employed by the local municipalities and regional councils (most psychologists work part-time). Nearly all the country’s 284 cities and local and regional councils have a school psychology service. The country is divided into six districts; each has a district school psychologist employed by the Psychological and Counseling Service, who is responsible for overseeing the work of the services in the district.
During the past decade, an important area of development has been school psychology services for the Arab population. In 1995, only six Arab centers had school psychology services, both because Arab society was less open to psychology and because the country had very few Arab psychologists. Over 5 years, 40 new services were established in Arab and Bedouin centers employing more than 120 psychologists, and an Arab deputy chief psychologist was appointed to supervise them. The Arab society in Israel has gradually changed its attitude to psychology, and only staff shortages prevent further growth.
The current ratio of school psychologists to number of pupils is 1 to 1,500. The ideal ratio has been defined as 1 to 1,000. The percentage of women in the profession has increased over the years; when the last survey was taken, in 2002, 78% of school psychologists were female. In managerial positions, however, men outnumber women three to one. School psychologists are relatively young, the average age being 42.1 years (SD = 8.39 years). Increased demand for their services has led to a significant influx of younger psychologists into the school psychology services. This has resulted in a rather troubling development, given that approximately half the psychologists working in the system are either interns or unlicensed.
Close to 3,500 guidance counselors are employed directly by the schools. They deal mainly with learning problems and with the delivery of a number of prevention programs developed in the Psychological and Counseling Service over the years (drug and alcohol abuse, violence, child abuse), as well as with several other programs dealing with life skills training and sex education, implemented throughout the school system. The Psychological and Counseling Service also serves as a consultant to the minister of education and to decision makers in the Ministry with regard to educational policy issues.
The major development in the profession over the past 30 years is the transformation of conceptual foundations underlying the work of the school psychologist, involving a shift from an individual, child-centered approach to a systemic outlook that makes the school, rather than the child, the client. Instead of testing “problem children” and directing them to “appropriate” educational settings, schools are encouraged to address the pupils’ special needs and keep them in regular schools, implicitly endorsing the motto of the well-known Polish educator Janus Korczak, who maintains that there are no bad children, there are only bad conditions. Psychologists consequently spend much less time in their clinics and more time working in the schools, going into classrooms, meeting with teachers, and helping their local municipalities to formulate educational policies. A further development is that school psychologists have assumed an active role, both in the schools and in the communities, in dealing with the aftermath of crisis situations (such as terrorist attacks, accidents, deaths, suicides, and natural disasters) and in setting up training programs to prepare school staffs to deal with future crises (Stein, 1997).
Psychology remains highly rated in occupational surveys and continues to attract some of the best students, thus ensuring that, barring some unforeseen development, it should retain this status in the future. Most comparative studies also find that psychologists report high levels of satisfaction with their work, and these findings were confirmed in an extensive 1996 survey of all school psychologists working in the Israeli system (Raviv, Mashraki-Pedhatzur, Raviv, & Erhard, 2002). Among 1,700 psychologists who were then working in 240 school psychology services throughout the country, findings indicated a high degree of job satisfaction, including a feeling that their work was appreciated by the people they worked with, that is, children, parents, teachers, principals, and public officials. When asked about the sources of satisfaction in their work, the following variables rated highly: good interpersonal relationships with colleagues; good working relationships with professionals in other fields, both in schools and in the community; good relations with teachers; good relations with principals; opportunities for in-service training and further education; and opportunities for professional advancement. Major sources of positive feelings were good interpersonal relationships with other staff members and excellent supervision and support systems. The following factors were mentioned as causes of dissatisfaction: too many demands on their limited time; too little time allocated for the tasks they were given; lack of support from their professional organizations; and poor university training that did not prepare them for the realities of their work.
In 2001, a survey of school principals obtained views concerning available psychological services (Erhard, 2001). Questionnaires were sent to all 2,928 elementary and secondary schools in the country; 53% of the principals responded. Kindergartens are administered by a different Ministry of Education department and were not included in the survey, which is unfortunate, given that school psychology services in Israel give priority to this age-group. Principals were asked: “What is your level of satisfaction with the psychological services provided at your school?” Answers were on a scale of 1 (very dissatisfied) to 6 (very satisfied). Results were very positive: 49.2% of the principals said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the psychological services provided to the school, 36.7% expressed moderate satisfaction, and 14.6% said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the service. A major factor of dissatisfaction was the limited extent of psychological services available to the school, mostly due to a lack of financial resources. A further, and perhaps vital, finding of this survey was that 89% of the principals said they wanted the psychologist to work more hours at the school; only 0.5% said they wanted the psychologist to spend less time at the school. School psychologists are more widely available in urban areas. The vast majority of school psychologists in Israel work in the public sector, although many of those in senior positions also work privately, mainly testing for learning disabilities.
Entry requirements to undergraduate psychology programs at Israeli universities include exceptionally high matriculation and psychometric scores. Admittance to a graduate program in clinical or school psychology is even harder, demanding very high grades at the undergraduate level. Only about 1 in 10 applicants is accepted, and training and internship are long and demanding. As described in the next section, after completing 5 to 6 years of study to obtain a master’s degree, psychologists do an internship in an applied field such as school, clinical, developmental, or rehabilitation psychology for at least 2 years. They then present a written case study and take an oral exam. One would expect those who succeed in this lengthy process to feel that they belong to a privileged elite entitled to professional respect and adequate material reward. However, psychologists are one of the lowest paid professional groups in Israel (especially during the first years of in-service training), and their physical working environments are often of rather poor quality.
Infrastructure of School Psychology
The Israel Psychological Association is the sole professional organization for licensed psychologists. It includes sections for several subspecialties, including one for school psychology. Membership is voluntary, but most practicing school psychologists are members. The school psychology section organizes an annual 4-day seminar for school psychologists and conducts wage negotiations with employers. In 1977, the Law of Psychologists was enacted after prolonged lobbying by the Israeli Psychological Association. Through this law, the association sought to protect the public from people who lacked suitable academic training and were practicing as “psychologists.” The law defined very clearly who may use the title of psychologist. The Ministry of Health was given responsibility for administering the law and issuing licenses to those who have fulfilled the legal requirements. The law requires the Ministry of Health to set up a “Council of Psychologists” to oversee its implementation and suggest changes deemed necessary in the light of developments. The council includes 31 psychologists representing the various divisions of the Israel Psychological Association, the universities, and the major employers (the ministries of health, education, and welfare). The Council has professional committees to manage the training and licensing of specialists in the areas of school, clinical, developmental, rehabilitation, medical, and industrial psychology, as well as accrediting frameworks wherein psychologists can train for specialization. A special committee deals with complaints against psychologists and has powers to implement disciplinary measures for ethical or criminal offenses, including the withholding of licenses. As of 2005, the total number of registered psychologists was 8,600, of which 1,390 (16%) are licensed school psychologists. Many of the psychologists employed as school psychologists are not licensed as school psychologists.
Preparation of School Psychologists
To be licensed as a psychologist by the Ministry of Health, applicants are required to show that they have studied for at least 5 years and graduated with a master’s degree from one of the five recognized universities in Israel (or at an equivalent institution abroad). They are then allowed to register at a recognized school psychology clinic and begin a training program for licensing. The law requires at least 2 years of full-time or 4 years of half-time work under supervision (at least 300 hours) and an oral examination at the end of the process. The trainee has to work and gain experience in the following areas: (a) individual diagnosis and evaluation of children and adolescents over a wide range of learning, behavioral, and emotional problems, using different kinds of tests, including specific tests for learning disabilities; (b) diagnosis and evaluation of group processes in the school system (at least 10 cases); (c) therapeutic interventions for children and their families (at least 30 cases); (d) psychological interventions in various educational frameworks: kindergarten, elementary school, high school, and a special education framework school; and (e) participation in in-service training programs (at least 100 hours). The final (oral) examination for obtaining licensing as a school psychologist requires that the candidate demonstrate proficiency in the following areas: (a) the school system—the school as the “client,” systemic interventions, organizational interventions; crisis interventions; parent groups; (b) individual diagnosis and evaluation—learning disabilities, behavioral and emotional problems, and so on; and (c) therapeutic intervention—individuals, families, and groups.
The next phase of professional development is a license to supervise trainees. This process may begin only 3 years after being licensed as a school psychologist. The candidate must work half-time for at least 2 years in a recognized clinic, supervise at least two trainees, and be supervised by at least two licensed school psychology supervisors. A supervisor’s license is granted on the basis of a written recommendation by the two supervisors who monitored the work. Psychologists with a master’s degree in another field of psychology may also train to become school psychologists, but they either have to return to the university to attend courses in the subjects they did not study during their master’s program or participate in specially tailored in-service training programs.
All five Israeli universities have master’s-degree programs in psychology. Only one, however, offers a program in school psychology (Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba). The others have replaced their school psychology programs with master’s programs in child clinical psychology, established in addition to their clinical psychology programs. The reason is that the status of clinical psychology has always been higher than that of other applied fields, and very few students were attracted to school psychology programs. As part of the child clinical master’s-level practicum, however, students must also work in educational settings, and the program includes several courses in school psychology subjects. Many of these graduates end up working in the school psychology services because that is where most of the job openings are. There is a definite need for a separate profession of school psychology, but the reality of the profession in Israel is that it enjoys much lower prestige than the far more popular one of clinical psychology. The practical solution has been for school psychology to accept into its ranks psychologists with academic training in other applied areas and to train them in the field.
Each of the five university programs admits about 15 students a year, so that close to 75 school and child clinical psychologists graduate every year. Many psychologists have also entered the country as immigrants, and many opt to undergo the necessary training to become licensed to practice as school psychologists. Together with local psychologists, who have graduated locally in areas other than the educational and child clinical ones, they attend in-service training courses in four key areas: the work of the psychologist in the schools, psychological assessment, normal development and psychopathology, and treatment of children.
The academic and professional preparation provides training in core academic knowledge in psychology (development, learning and cognition, educational, personality, social, experimental, biological, statistics, and research design); assessment services (intellectual, academic, emotional, and social assessment); intervention services (behavioral, affective, educational, and social-systems); focus on children and youth (within the context of classrooms, schools, families, communities, and other systems); interpersonal skills (establishing trust and rapport, listening, and communication skills); professional decision-making skills; statistical methods and research design; and the services’ legal and ethical basis. Training programs in Israel rely mainly on professional literature from the United States, but several Hebrew publications specifically aimed at school psychologists are available, although no Israeli academic journal deals with school psychology per se. There are doctoral programs in psychology at all of the five universities, but since the entrance requirement for work is a master’s degree, the doctoral program is academic and not specific to applied areas such as school or clinical psychology.
Roles, Functions, and Responsibilities of School Psychologists
The typical activities, roles, and responsibilities of school psychologists include observations in classrooms; consultations with teachers, principals, and other professionals working in the schools; testing pupils referred for learning and behavior problems; participation in various mandatory frameworks; deciding on interventions and referrals of individual cases; and treatment (usually short-term) for children and/or their families. Other activities include preparing crisis response teams in schools or crisis interventions after a violent or traumatic event in the school or the community. In addition, all school psychologists in training receive at least one hour a week of individual supervision from one of the senior members of the clinic where they work, and also participate in in-service training seminars held on a regular basis.
The tests most widely used to evaluate intellectual ability are the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, third edition, and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, both of which have been standardized for the Israeli population (norms for these tests are currently being developed for the Arab population). Recently, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale was standardized for high school students, and Israeli norms have been developed for several specific tests for learning disabilities. The Henrietta Szold Institute has developed group tests of achievement for various age levels, as well as tests that identify gifted children. The most commonly used personality tests are the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception Test, although these are gradually losing in popularity and more emphasis is being placed on observations and interviews.
The 2002 survey (Raviv et al., 2002) found that, on average, school psychologists devoted three fifths of their time outside the psychological center to system-oriented activities such as consultation (with principals and teachers) and to administrative work, staff meetings, and supervision within the center. The rest of their time was devoted to clinically oriented activities such as diagnostic testing, individual therapy with children, and parent counseling. An interesting finding is that the school psychologists themselves envisage their desired role as that of a clinician who spends most of his or her time working with children in individual therapy, counseling with parents, and, to some extent, consulting teachers. The older and more experienced psychologists were found to spend relatively more time in organizational activities, supervising interns, and doing individual therapy.
Current Issues Impacting School Psychology
The most serious problem confronting the profession of school psychology is the concern about financing services in the future. There is a continuing possibility of privatization of school psychology services, mainly as a result of the government’s neoconservative economic policies, which are gradually eroding the country’s welfare state structure. In an attempt to preempt such a move, the Psychological and Counseling Service developed a “service basket” prescribing the essential services for which all children are eligible free of charge, mainly detailing the basic statutory services related to diagnostic work with children with special needs. This is a major achievement, in that it has helped to create a relatively uniform system of mandatory services throughout the country. Mandatory services include consultation with school personnel regarding pupils with problems; children at risk-systemic intervention in the community; diagnosis and evaluation of children with special needs (as mandated in the special education laws), and participation in the various placement committees at the school and district levels; therapeutic interventions with children at risk (up to five sessions); and crisis intervention at the individual, school, and community levels.
The service basket also delineates three further levels of service priorities, to be provided when the necessary personnel are available at the local school psychology service. These include participation in interdisciplinary committees that set up treatment programs for children with special needs; consultations with principals and teachers to promote social and emotional processes in the schools; consulting with municipal health and welfare agencies; participation in local educational steering committees; short-term therapy and counseling for children and parents; and diagnostic work to determine school readiness. Finally, the “service basket” lists services to be provided only if funded or paid for by the client. These include testing for giftedness and for special accommodations for students with learning disabilities; therapy beyond the first five sessions; group work with children; parent groups; and lectures and workshops for school personnel. Many school Psychology services (especially the larger urban ones) now provide such additional services, using the income to supplement the budget of the school psychological service and offset the periodic budgetary cuts.
In October 2003, the government appointed a National Task Force for the Advancement of Education in Israel. The Task Force mandate was to conduct a comprehensive examination of the Israeli education system, recommend an inclusive plan for pedagogical, structural, and organizational changes, and spell out the means of implementing it (Ministry of Education, 2005). The impetus for reform came from public outcry at the alarmingly low achievements of Israeli pupils in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) studies of international comparisons. Although the report is very comprehensive, it says little about psychological services in the schools, leading to understandable anxiety within the profession and to extensive lobbying seeking to at least maintain current levels of psychological services in schools. The report sets a standard for services to be provided by the proposed regional educational administrations, including psychologists, charged with implementing and overseeing the reforms. The proposed ratio of pupils to psychologists is about 30% lower than the currently recommended ones. Instead of school psychology services functioning as separate organizational units under municipal auspices, the regional educational administrations will have a pool of psychologists to carry out their work as needed. The report makes no provision for psychological services for children with special educational needs, for children requiring psychological help with emotional difficulties, for dealing with crises in the school or the community, for prevention programs, for early identification of developmental problems in 3- to 4-year-olds, or for dealing with the emotional climate in schools. If this reform is implemented, it will pose a serious threat to the entire structure of school psychology in Israel. In an attempt to confront this crisis, school psychologists have invested efforts in several forums set up over the past 10 years to prepare position papers on several major issues: early childhood education, special education, learning disabilities, violence, and treatment of victims of sexual abuse. Some of these have been presented to the Ministry of Education, and some of the recommendations have been adopted as official policy, notably with respect to kindergarten retention and accommodations for pupils diagnosed with learning difficulties.
Seeking to improve postgraduate in-service training for all school psychologists, a group of senior school psychologists has established an Institute for Advanced Studies in School Psychology, with the support of the Psychological and Counseling Service. This is a comprehensive program that will offer courses in various areas of specialization, including management and financial skills. A further goal is to create more uniform standards of practice and to work with the professional licensing committee to establish advanced certification in subspecialties within school psychology.
One of the profession’s most serious problems is that it lacks political influence and has been unable to offer a clear image of its input as a group with superior training, well appreciated in their working environment, and making a significant contribution to a troubled multicultural society. Another threat to school psychology derives from the difficulty of differentiating the profession from school counseling, especially because requirements for school counseling have been upgraded in recent years, and certification now requires a master’s degree. Many counselors now also receive advanced training in group and family therapy. School psychologists are also increasingly required to deal with multidisciplinary teams that may include occupational therapists, expressive therapists (in art, music, or movement), learning disability specialists, and didactic assessors. In order to address these threats, the newly created Institute for Advanced Studies is running an ongoing symposium for both senior and junior psychologists dealing with the profession’s future directions. Another related issue is that school psychology has always suffered from perceptions of inferiority vis-à-vis clinical psychology, aggravated by the law stipulating that only clinical psychologists are allowed to do psychotherapy. This has motivated many school psychologists in Israel to complete postgraduate courses and do clinical internships in order to be allowed to work as psychotherapists. Despite the challenges facing the profession, and notwithstanding the pressing current concerns about statutory changes and budgetary constraints, opportunities are still available for further development. If suitably exploited, they could prove no less exciting to the future of school psychology in Israel than the significant achievements attained over the past 50 years.