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Sharon A. Hoover, PhD

Academic Title:

Professor

Primary Appointment:

Psychiatry

Additional Title:

Co-Director, National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH) Director, NCTSN Center for Safe Supportive Schools (NCS3)

Email:

shoover@som.umaryland.edu

Location:

737 W. Lombard St.

Phone (Primary):

(443) 801-3254

Phone (Secondary):

(410) 706-0980 (Center)

Fax:

(410) 706-0984

Education and Training

University of Sussex, England, Study Abroad Program, Psychology, School of Cultural and Community Studies, 1995

Miami University, Oxford, OH, B.A., Psychology, 1996

University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, M.A., Clinical Psychology, 2000

University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, 2002

University of Maryland Medical System, Baltimore, MD, Postdoctoral Fellowship, School Mental Health, 2004

Biosketch

Sharon A. Hoover, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Co-Director of the National Center for School Mental Health (NCSMH, www.schoolmentalhealth.org), and Director of the Center for Safe Supportive Schools (NCS3, www.ncs3.org). She currently leads national efforts to support states, districts and schools in the adoption of national performance standards of comprehensive school mental health systems (www.theSHAPEsystem.com). Dr. Hoover has led and collaborated on multiple federal and state grants, with a commitment to the study and implementation of quality children’s mental health services in schools. Currently, she co-leads two large randomized trials of school mental health efforts, one focused on reducing exclusionary discipline practices by installing mental health and restorative practice approaches and one on improving school mental health services with best practices in family engagement, educator mental health literacy and modularized evidence-based clinical practices.

Creating safe, supportive and resilient schools has been a major emphasis of Dr. Hoover’s research, education and clinical work. She has worked for over two decades, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Education, the Centers for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization to train national, state, and local education and behavioral health leaders and professionals in multi-tiered systems of support for mental health and psychological trauma. She has trained school and community behavioral health staff and educators in districts across the United States, as well as internationally, including consultation on building safe and supportive school mental health systems in Canada, China, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, South Korea, and Ukraine. Dr. Hoover is a certified national trainer for Bounce Back, the CBITS Program - Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools – and the SSET Program – Support for Students Exposed to Trauma. As an advisor to the World Health Organization, Dr. Hoover has provided consultation and technical assistance on comprehensive school mental health in several countries, including developing and implementing a student mental health curriculum for teachers throughout the Middle East and developing and evaluating a school-based intervention to support immigrant and refugee youth in Canada and the United States. 

Dr. Hoover has also also devoted considerable efforts to understanding the implementation of “collaborative” mental health care in primary care settings, including school-based health centers. As a Co-Investigator on the Center for Mental Health Services in Pediatric Primary Care at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, she developed a research portfolio examining the common factors and practice elements of mental health care that could feasibly be implemented by school-based health practitioners. She worked closely with Center leaders and the National Association of School Nurses on the development of an in-person and online training for school health providers, the Mental Health Training for Health Providers in Schools (MHTIPS), currently being implemented across the United States to improve school nurses’ and other school health providers’ capacity to address student mental health.

Research/Clinical Keywords

School Mental Health, Primary Care-Behavioral Health Integration, Trauma

Highlighted Publications

Weist, M., Hoover, S., Daly, B., Short, K., & Bruns, E. (2023). Propelling the Global Advancement of School Mental Health, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 1-14.Crooks, C. V., Hoover, S., & Smith, A. (In press). Feasibility trial of the school-based STRONG intervention to promote resilience among newcomer youth. Psychology in the Schools.

Connors, E. H., Moffa, K., Carter, T., Crocker, J., Bohnenkamp, J. H., Lever, N. A., & Hoover, S. A. (2022). Advancing mental health screening in schools: Innovative, field‐tested practices and observed trends during a 15‐month learning collaborative. Psychology in the Schools, 59(6), 1135-1157.

Hoover, S., & Bostic, J. (2021). Schools as a vital component of the child and adolescent mental health system. Psychiatric Services, 72(1), 37-48.

Hoover, S. H. (2019). Strengthening Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups (STRONG): Pilot findings from a cognitive-behavioral intervention for refugees and immigrants in schools. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 58(10), S364-S365.

Hoover, S.A. Policy and Practice for Trauma-Informed Schools. State Education Standard19, no. 1 (2019): 25-29.

Bohnenkamp, J., Schaeffer, C., Siegal, R., Beason, T., Smith-Millman, M., & Hoover, S. (2021). Impact of a school-based, multi-tiered emotional and behavioral health crisis intervention on school safety and discipline. Prevention Science, 1-12.

Hoover, S., & Bostic, J. (2021). Best practices and considerations for student mental health screening in schools. Journal of Adolescent Health, 28, 225-226.

Connors, E., Smith-Millman, M., Bohnenkamp, J., Carter, T., Lever, N., & Hoover, S. (2020). Can we move the need on school mental health quality through systematic quality improvement collaboratives? School Mental Health, 12, 478-492.

Hoover, S. A. (2018). When we know better, we don’t always do better: Facilitating the research to practice and policy gap in school mental health. School Mental Health, 1-9.

Lawson, G.M., McKenzie, M.E., Becker, K.D., Selby, L., & Hoover, S. (2018). The core components of evidence-based social emotional learning programs. Prevention Science, 1-11.

Hoover, S. A., Sapere, H., Lang, J. M., Nadeem, E., Dean, K. L., & Vona, P. (2018). Statewide implementation of an evidence-based trauma intervention in schools. School Psychology Quarterly, 33(1), 44.

Fazel, M., Hoagwood, K., Stephan, S., & Ford, T. (2014). Mental health interventions in schools in high-income countries. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(5), 377-387.

Additional Publication Citations

Awards and Affiliations

Grants and Contracts

Links of Interest

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