Assistant Professor Emeritus
Education:
Louisiana State University, PhD
Biography:
Dr. William (Bill) McKee is Director of the Psychoeducational Research and Training Centre and Assistant Professor of School Psychology and Special Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia. He has been involved in research and graduate training in School Psychology and Special Education at UBC since 1990.
Bill worked with a broad spectrum of children and youth with special needs as a special education teacher, prior to undertaking doctoral work in School Psychology at Louisiana State University. Following his doctoral study, he worked as a School Psychologist in the Olympia Washington public schools, one of the first districts in the United States to provide full-inclusion in neighborhood schools for all students with disabilities. A major focus of his current work is the planning and delivery of psychological and educational services to students with special needs, with a particular emphasis on School-Based Mental Health. A particular emphasis of this work, both in clinical training and research, is the integration of professional services and effective processes for planning and implementation of educational support services for children and youth with special needs (CYSN). Bill has been involved for several years with provincial efforts to respond to needs for research and development of services for CYSN. Of particular interest are the efforts by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Children & Family Development, and the Ministry of Health to develop a Framework for Action in responding to key issues of Waits, Gaps and Overlaps, Inconsistent Standards and Service Quality, and a Complex and Disjointed Service System.
Scholarly Interests:
Children and Youth with Special Needs, Consultation and Interventions, Ethical and Legal Issues in School Psychology, Integrated Service Delivery, Mental Health (depression), Multi-disciplinary Teams, Professional, Young People Placed “At Risk”
Scholarly Interests:
School Psychology Professional Practices and Models of Service Delivery, School-Based Mental Health Services, Students with Significant Mental Health Challenges, Behavioral and Social-Emotional Needs.
Community Engagement:
Bill is member of the Advisory Committee to the provincial Representative for Children and Youth (RCY) on Children and Youth with Mental Health Issues and Special Needs. The advsory committee provides the Representative with support for strategic and operational activities related to advocacy, youth engagement, monitoring, child and infant death investigations, care planning, and indigenous strategies and partnerships at a provincial and local level.
Bill is a member of the UBC Academic Senate, representing the joint Faculties since 2006. He is co-chair of the Senate Teaching and Learning committee, and a member of the Senate Academic Policy committee, and the Senate Standing Committee on Academic Appeals.
Bill served on Graduate Council of the Faculty of Graduate Studies since 1999, and also chaired the Graduate Curriculum Committee for the Faculty of Graduate Studies from 2000 -2012.
Bill has served as a member of the UBC President’s Advisory Committee on Student Discipline since 2004.
Awards:
Killam University Teaching Prize February, 2001
Selected Publications:
Swart, S., Hall, W.A., McKee, W.T., & Ford, L. (2014). Caregivers’ management of schooling for their children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Qualitative Health Research vol. 24 no. 11 1540-1552
Wormeli, C., Robinson, G., & McKee, W.T. (2010). Administration and technical manual for the SAASI-HFS, School aged autism screening instrument for high functioning students, 70 pages, Delta, BC: POPARD Press.
Hymel, S., Le Mare, L. & McKee, W. (2011). The Early Development Instrument (EDI): An examination of convergent and discriminant validity, Social Indicators Research: An interdisciplinary international journal for quality of life measurement. Volume 103, Number 2, September 2011 , pp. 267-282.
Perot, J. A. & McKee, W. T. (1996). How school psychologists think about scoring ambiguous and difficult-to-score responses: Some implications for training and practice. Trainers’ Forum, 15 (1), 12-13.
Theoretical Orientation:
Pragmatic Behavioral, Cognitive-Behavioral
Research Funding Sources and Current Projects
Investigation of evidence-based practices for supporting children at risk in BC schools – supported by research grant from the office of the Representative for Children and Youth.
Building a healthier school community, increasing educator mental health literacy – Support by the John and Doris Andrews Research and Development Grant, UBC.
High school mental health literacy project – Supported by the Public Scholar’s Initiative, UBC Faculty of Graduate and Post-doctoral studies.
Research Projects:
Bill has a major research project on development and implementation of Individual Education Plans (IEPs) for students identified with special needs. This project involves studies on the planning, implementation and quality of data used in IEPs for students in British Columbia schools who have been identified with special needs.
Bill is also working with the British Columbia Association of Child Development & Intervention (BCACDI) on – the Children and Youth with Special Needs Service and Provider Mapping and Modeling project. Completion of this work will allow for a comprehensive picture of the services for children and youth with special needs and their families within British Columbia through the range of community, regional and provincial specialized and sub-specialized service providers. This will include identification and location of the services being provided, the providers and professions involved, the populations being served by each service and the tier of service (Tier 2 – Community; Tier 3 – Regional, Tier 4 – Provincial) within the three sectors of health, education and social services.
Bill is also involved in ongoing program evaluation projects focused on evaluation school and community prevention programs for at-risk children and youth with Family Services Canada and the National Crime Prevention Centre.
Courses Taught:
EPSE 550
EPSE 589
EPSE 590
EPSE 687
EPSE 688
EPSE 689