Harrison CSD: HAS’ Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman Awarded School Psychologist of the Year
Congratulations to Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman who was awarded School Psychologist of the Year by the New York Association of School Psychologists (NYASP) for Westchester/Rockland/Putnam Counties. Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman works with students at Harrison Avenue Elementary School.
“I believe that my work in teaching the importance of growing character strengths led to this award,” Dr. Baruch-Feldman said. “I have worked on developing the character strengths of kindness, flexibility, and grit with students at Harrison Avenue for the last few years. Across the grade level and peer-to-peer, we have been working on explicitly teaching character strengths to students and sharing this work with faculty and parents.”
Dr. Baruch-Feldman has been focusing on teaching children to “fill buckets”- highlighting words or phrases of compliments or support to add to a peer’s bucket. Under Dr. Baruch-Feldman’s guidance, fifth grade students at Harrison Avenue lead discussions with the school’s kindergarten classes on how to best interact with each other.
“I have shared the work we are doing with my colleagues so that they can turn-key this work in their school districts.”
Dr. Baruch-Feldman has also published a new book titled, “The Grit Guide for Teens” available through New Harbinger and can be found at www.drbaruchfeldman.com/book
As Julie Snider, Director of Special Education for the Harrison Central School District, said in an email to the department, “Caren is being recognized for her great contributions to the field of school psychology. She partners with her colleagues throughout the area and all are appreciative of her work and collaboration.”