Background
Sandra Chafouleas is the Co-Director of CSCH as a well as a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology in the Neag School of Education at UConn. Before turning to research, Chafouleas was a school psychologist in a variety of settings, with specialization working with students exhibiting challenging behavior. As a researcher, her main areas of interest continue to include all aspects of student behavior, including early identification of risk, assisting schools with decision-making about student supports, and designing usable supports.
“My research is all about how to support students in being successful in school. Skills such as being engaged, non-disruptive, and getting along with adults and other peers can be challenging for some students. So my research focus is on helping all students be ready to access great academic instruction,” says Chafouleas. Her current work includes understanding the current national landscape of approaches that schools use to identify students that are at risk for social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, and helping schools design effective and usable systems for making decisions about student supports.
Along with CSCH colleagues, Dr. Chafouleas has been working to design a toolkit to support use of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model . The toolkit includes accessible multi-media information about the model and its components, an action planning blueprint, and a policy evaluation tool.
Involvement with CSCH
As the Co-Director of CSCH, Chafouleas has an interest in all of the projects that the Collaboratory is working on as a whole. “What interests me the most about CSCH is the tremendous opportunity to explore interdisciplinary directions on how to solve complex problems and issues to facilitate better outcomes for children and their schools. I am excited to be working with colleagues that come with the same passions that I have, but can add different expertise and disciplinary lenses as to how best to address complex issues.”
Fun Facts
Chafouleas is an avid animal lover, particularly of rescue dogs.