Brooke Paskewich, PsyD, research focuses on promoting positive social-emotional health and development of children through the provision of evidenced-based supports and interventions. She has centered this work in the prevention and intervention of aggressive and bullying behaviors in urban school settings through a range of indicated and universal research programs designed for students, school counselors and teachers. Dr. Paskewich has expertise in community-based participatory research (CBPR) and qualitative research, which she has applied to a portfolio of five NIH- and IES-funded school-based intervention development studies targeting aggression and bullying among 3rd-5th grade youth. Dr. Paskewich currently conducting developmental research related to social-emotional learning and anti-aggression/bullying programming targeting 1st and 2nd grade youth, a racial microaggression intervention for hospital-based biomedical research staff, and a multi-tiered school-based mental health (SBMH) program.

Dr. Paskewich has extensive expertise conducting randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in schools. She has directed the implementation of two different RCTs funded by NIH and IES testing the efficacy of interventions as conducted by trained research team facilitators. She is currently conducting research that has moved beyond efficacy trials into effectiveness trials testing interventions in real-world conditions, including two new NIH R01 RCTs testing interventions when school-led (e.g., by a teacher or school counselor) with coaching from our research team. The first is a 40-school RCT testing the effectiveness of a school-led indicated aggression prevention program with coaching, and the second is a 32-school RCT testing the effectiveness of a coaching model for training teachers to detect, prevent and intervene with bullying in the classroom. She is an MPI on a RCT study under review by the CDC that will test the effectiveness and sustainability of a universal bullying prevention program that she and her team adapted over the last three years.

Dr. Paskewich conducts research to bridge the gap between evidenced-based intervention research and practice in real-world settings. She has leveraged a large portfolio of intervention research studies over the last fifteen years to develop expertise in responsive methods for overcoming recruitment barriers and limiting sample bias in school-based research. She has also developed intervention implementation strategies that balance core features required for fidelity with a flexibility that is responsive to the unique needs of schools to maximize intervention feasibility, generalizability, and sustainability. With a focus on historically under-served schools, Dr. Paskewich's research assesses factors (e.g., treatment fidelity and school, implementer, and program characteristics) that are associated with intervention outcomes and that facilitate or impede program uptake and fidelity, and how schools can independently implement and sustain evidence-based programs.

MS, Chestnut Hill College (Counseling Psychology), 2002

PsyD, Chestnut Hill College (Clinical Psychology), 2008

APA-accredited Pre-doctoral Internship, The Institute for Children and Family Health (formerly The Children’s Psychiatric Center), 2006

Post-doctoral Intervention Research Training, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2008

Co-Director of School-Based Bullying Prevention and Social-Emotional Learning Research, Center for Violence Prevention, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Research Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

National Association for School Psychologists

Society for Prevention Research

Society for Research in Adolescence

Society for Research in Child Development

Featured Researcher in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute's "2020 Women in STEM"

The Friend to Friend Program: Effectiveness when Conducted by School Staff
NICHD/NIH
02/01/2019 - 01/31/2025

The major goal of this grant is to conduct a 40-school clinical trial to test the effectiveness of the Friend to Friend with Coaching program for relationally aggressive girls and their classmates, teachers, and counselors. We will also examine mediators and moderators of program success, as well as facilitators and barriers of schools' independent adoption and implementation of the program when active coaching is removed.

PI: Stephen Leff, PhD

Coaching Teachers in Bullying Detection and Intervention
NICHD/NIH
06/01/2021-05/31/2026

The major goal of this grant is to conduct a multi-site 32-school randomized controlled trial to test the effectiveness of the Bullying Classroom Check-Up on child aggressive and bullying behaviors, teacher practices (i.e., classroom management skills and bullying intervention strategies), and relationships (i.e., student-teacher and student-student).

MPI: Tracy E. Waasdorp, PhD, Med
Co-I: Brooke Paskewich, PsyD

ADVANCING EQUITY & ACCESS TO MENTAL HEALTH: Expanding CHOP School-based Integrated Telehealth in West Philadelphia
Independence Blue Cross Foundation
12/01/2022-12/31/2023 (renewed annually)

This project will expand an innovative school-based mental health (SBMH) collaborative integrated care model that combines professional development for school staff, onsite site support of youth impacted by trauma or other undiagnosed mental health conditions, and telehealth services to increase access and equity for vulnerable children and families.

PI: Consuelo Cagande, MD, DFAPA, DFAACAP, PhD

Developing Modules to Address Microaggressions and Discriminatory Behaviors
NIH/NIGMS
06/01/2023 05/31/2026

The major goal of this R25 grant is to use a mixed-method CBPR process to create a series of self-directed, self-paced learning modules to address biases and racial and intersectional microaggressions and macroaggressions among biomedical research staff.

MPI: Stephen S. Leff, PhD / Andrea Duncan, MD
Co-I: Brooke Paskewich, PsyD

Developing Social-Emotional Learning and Anti-Aggression/Bullying Curriculum for Early Elementary Grades
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Research Institute
03/01/2023-2/28/2025

The major goal of this grant is to address behavioral health needs during children's formative early years by developing and pilot testing social emotional learning (SEL) and anti-aggression/bullying curriculum for 1st and 2nd-graders.

PI: Tracy E. Waasdorp, PhD, Med
Co-I: Brooke Paskewich, PsyD

Interviewed by 6ABC Action News for Raising Healthy Kids: Bullying Prevention. April 2014.