ABOUT US
Experience:
Keeping students and schools safe has been the driving force behind Healthy Minds, Safe Schools for the past decade. Inspiring children to trust that a better day is coming has been a daily pursuit for Alison and Katie. Helping children in schools to overcome their past and current traumas has inspired them to work toward finding solutions for students because student well-being and safety depend on it.
Healthy Minds, Safe Schools was birthed from an epidemic of suicidal ideations, suicidal attempts, and threats to others in the trenches of inner-city schools that had limited resources, no proactive preventative care in place, and lacked effective communication procedures among school staff members in times of crises.
Alison and Katie have dedicated their careers to supporting students and staff through changing school systems. The result has been the creation of a highly effective, evidence-based and research-based behavioral health model for schools that is easy to implement. In doing so, their goal is to help all children feel part of a supportive, inclusive, and collaborative school culture. Establishing this standard level of care assists to address all students’ needs in order for them to be academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally healthy.
Leadership Team:
Alison Clark is a co-founder of Health Minds, Safe Schools and is a nationally certified school psychologist currently working in threat assessment and crisis response in a large urban public school district. For the past 30 years she has been pioneering academic, behavioral and school-based mental health practices using the evidence-based framework of Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS). Her groundbreaking textbooks on secondary and elementary MTSS have revolutionized MTSS implementation in schools. Alison specializes in implementation science and systems change in schools, risk and threat assessment/mitigation, behavioral modification in school children, and smart teaming in education. Alison earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nevada Association of School Psychologists in 2016.
Alison Clark, Co-founder
Katie Dockweiler, Co-founder
Dr. Katie Dockweiler, NCSP, is an Assistant Professor of School Psychology at Nevada State University and co-founder of Healthy Minds, Safe Schools. She has a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership with an emphasis in policy analysis frameworks. Her research interests include workforce development programs, mental-behavioral health MTSS implementation, bilingual psycho-educational assessment, and systems organization theory. She is the creator of the Active Recruitment, Training, and Educator Retention to serve our Youth (ARTERY) Pipeline Framework for school psychologists and has successfully secured millions in federal grants to support this research. Specifically, funding through the U.S. Department of Education to support the training of mental health providers, and through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to provide mental health evaluative services to students. Dr. Dockweiler actively provides service nationally and to her state community. She is Vice President of the Nevada State Board of Education, Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Nevada Association of School Psychologists, and Past-Chair of the National Association of School Psychologists Professional Communication Committee.
Mary Bier
Director of Client and Culture Relations
