Within and beyond: Some implications of developmental contexts for reframing school psychology

Disadvantage negatively affects human development but is amenable to change. Education is important in reducing disadvantage and school psychologists and counselors make critical contributions to reducing inequity and maximizing social mobility. Counselors and psychologists can further enhance their contributions in two ways. The first is to prioritize synergizing the strengths and resilience that all students bring. The second is to reconceptualize the client as the ecosystem in which all students develop and learn. Considering evidence through the lens of Bronfenbrenner's bioecological (Process-Person-Context-Time) model, this article presents promising evidence that where deliberate, collaborative efforts are made to strengthen multiple developmental contexts, both within and beyond schools, these can successfully improve student outcomes across multiple domains and have a greater likelihood of achieving scale and sustainability than traditional, individual-focused therapeutic approaches.