Dr. Howard Adelman
Dr. Howard Adelman is a professor of psychology and co-director (along with Dr. Linda Taylor) of the School Mental Health Project and its federally-supported National Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA.* He obtained his PhD in Psychology from UCLA in 1966 where he worked with Dr. Seymour Feshbach and Dr. James C. Coleman on his dissertation. He directed the Fernald School and Laboratory at UCLA from1973-1986. Dr. Adelman is interested in clinical-child, school based mental health programs, learning and motivation problems, and intervention theory.
Over the years his research and teaching has focused on policy and practice addressing barriers to students’ learning including, educational, psychological, and mental health problems. More specifically, he is interested in system variables and intrinsic motivational factors relevant to the causes and corrections of emotional, behavioral, and learning problems. Dr. Adelman has been recently involved in large-scale systemic reform initiatives to enhance school and community efforts to address barriers to leaning and promote healthy development. Dr. Adelman along with Dr. Taylor have focused on dropout prevention, enhancing the mental health facets of school-based healthy centers, and developing comprehensive, school-based approaches for students with learning, behavior, and emotional problems.
Some of the courses taught by Dr. Adelman include undergraduate and graduate level courses. At the undergraduate level he has taught Leaning Disabilities in Perspective, Mental Health in Schools: Policy and Practice, and Individual Studies. At the graduate level he has taught Learning and Behavior Problems, Intervention for Child Problems, and individual supervision for research and clinical work.
* It is one of two national centers concerned with mental health in schools that are funded in part by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Adolescent Health, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration -- with co-funding from the Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Center approaches mental health and psychosocial concerns from the broad perspective of addressing barriers to learning and promoting healthy development. In particular, it focuses on comprehensive, multifaceted models and practices to deal with the many external and internal barriers that interfere with development, learning, and teaching. Specific attention is given policies and strategies that can counter marginalization and fragmentation of essential interventions and enhance collaboration between school and community programs. In this respect, a major emphasis is on enhancing the interface between efforts to address barriers to learning and prevailing approaches to school and community reforms (http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu).