Sara took a psychology class in high school and enjoyed learning about how feelings and behaviors impact our decisions and life. She considers exploring psychology programs for college but doesn’t know what careers could be options if she pursues this pathway.

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has an annual conference in Chicago this year. A teacher asks Sara if she would like to attend a field trip that NASP is hosting. Sara and 15 classmates go to the NASP conference where they meet other students from around the city.

The students learn that school psychologists combine the work of a detective and a counselor. They engage in a group activity where students role-play a psychologist, teacher, and parent to discuss support a student may need to find success in school. After making some decisions based on the provided information, the group gets an update card on the students and discusses next steps. Each group then shares their approach, the outcome, and what they learned with the other teams. Students then attend 2 of 4 optional breakout sessions held by different host organizations and lastly arrive on the conference floor to visit pre-identified booths to engage with professionals in this field. All students leave with a handout that includes key skills for this career path, names of colleges and universities that offer strong childhood psychology programs, and ways to get involved while in high school.

Sara leaves this day excited about this career path, she sees connections between her tutoring work with Read to Lead and her psychology class. She begins working with her club sponsor and psychology teacher to build engaging activities to boost students' confidence during their tutoring workshops. She also learns that two midwest colleges - University of Michigan and University of Minnesota have very strong child psychology programs and is planning to apply next year.

NASP has a list of students who are eager to learn more about this career path, they also share the stories of how this supported the community and local students, like Sara, on their social media to market this career path even further. Many of the exhibitors and presenting organizations are excited about supporting more youth to enter the field and are eager to become sponsors at the next NASP conference.