Philip J. Lazarus

Lazarus has served as the Director of the School Psychology Program at Florida International University for over 40 years and his primary responsibility is to train school psychologists to work in the schools. He is currently the internship coordinator. He is the author or editor of four books including: Psycho-educational Evaluation of Children and Adolescents with Low-Incidence Handicaps; Best Practices in School Crisis Prevention and Intervention; Creating Safe and Supportive Schools and Fostering Students’ Mental Health and Fostering the Emotional Well-Being of Youth: A School-Based Approach. He has served as the President of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) and the Florida Association of School Psychologists (FASP). He is licensed as both a psychologist and school psychologist in the state of Florida. Lazarus is a founder and Past- Chairperson of the National Emergency Assistance Team of the NASP. This team has provided direct crisis assistance in the aftermath of more than a dozen tragic school shootings. He led the NASP crisis response in Mississippi and Louisiana where he provided crisis intervention training in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and Rita and he also led the team in the Gulf Coast in the response to the gulf oil spill disaster. He has also maintained a private practice for over 30 years. He specializes in working with children, adolescents and families. His practice encompasses assessment, therapy and consultation with troubled youth and their families. Lazarus has dealt with schools and communities that have been involved with trauma such and loss of life and has provided therapy and assessment following bus accidents impacting two communities in both Florida and Texas. He consulted with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in their landmark study on profiling school shooters and has worked on school violence prevention and bullying prevention for National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc and VIRTUS®. Dr. Lazarus has been interviewed by a number of news sources such as the CNBC, CNN, the Glenn Beck Show, Newsweek, Seventeen Magazine, Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, and has appeared on numerous radio talk shows dealing with such topics as depression in children, anxiety in children and adolescents, responding to natural disasters, coping with trauma following school shootings, school violence, helping children deal with grief and trauma following 9-11, bullying in schools, threat assessment, and identifying troubled students.