All right, everybody. Welcome back. This is the last episode in our International Assessment Series. Today, I am talking with Dr. Joseph Graybill. He’s a licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist. After completing his Master’s degree at Columbia University and Ph.D. at Fordham University, Dr. Graybill worked as a school psychologist in a New Jersey public school and in private practice. He is currently the psychologist at the Anglo-American school in Moscow, Russia, and maintains a Teletherapy practice.
Much like the prior episodes, we’re going to be talking through the ins and outs of his position, how that’s similar to the practice that we conduct in the U.S., how it’s [00:01:00] different, and things that you might want to think about if you have ever considered moving internationally and particularly working in an international school.
It is a unique episode, especially from the previous two, in that Joseph is a US citizen, and working in an international school provides a little bit more of a bridge for an easier transition to a foreign country than just diving right in. I hope you take a lot away from this episode.
Before we get to the conversation, I wanted to give a little promotion again to the webinar that I’m going to be co-hosting in August with Dr. Ryan Matulis. This webinar is going to be all about the nuts and bolts of remote assessment during COVID-19 for children. We’re going to go over research, practice considerations, and tech setup, and Ryan is going to dive into considerations for [00:02:00] working with challenging kids with developmental delays over telehealth. I think there’s a lot to be taken away from this webinar and I hope that we will see you there. The link is in the show notes. You can register and get CE credits if you’re interested in that too.
All right. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Dr. Joseph Graybill.
Hey y’all, welcome back to another episode of The Testing Psychologist podcast. Hey, I’m excited to have my guest here, Dr. Joseph Graybill to talk all about International Assessment in Russia, specifically in Moscow. Joseph, welcome to the podcast.
Dr. Joseph: Thank you, Jeremy. [00:03:00] Pleasure to be with you.
Dr. Sharp: I’m glad to have you. It’s interesting. This International Series has been a dream of mine for a long time but it stalled a bit with finding guests. I’m fortunate that we ran across one another and you’re willing to jump on. I think this is a version of international assessment that people will be interested in.
Dr. Joseph: Thank you for having me on. I look forward to our conversation.
Dr. Sharp: Cool. I want to jump right into it. Can you tell people where you’re at and exactly what you are doing there?
Dr. Joseph: Sure. Right now I’m in Moscow, Russia. This is my 2nd year working in Moscow. Prior to that, I was working in a very traditional school psychology role in a suburban high school in New Jersey. [00:04:00] I did that for several years and maybe even more.
It was probably a combination of personal and also professional aspirations. I’ve always been a big traveler. I’ve traveled to about 60 countries and a lot of that travel was… A lot of times we’re afforded the opportunity to travel as school psychologists in the summer. So I took advantage of that. I enjoyed immersing myself in different cultures around the world.
I honestly can’t say I specifically went into it thinking about Russia in particular, but it took me maybe a year or two of browsing around the internet and looking at what opportunities there are for psychologists to work abroad. I eventually came on to international schools and what I found in my research was that there are two main organizations that [00:05:00] link teachers to teaching abroad. One is called International School Services and the other is called Search Associates. They vet and make sure educators have credentials. They also vet these schools, link them through job fairs and conferences, and help them to get together for interviews.
I attended one of these job conferences in Atlanta. I didn’t go into it with any big expectations. I still consider myself just poking around and looking to see what was out there.
I eventually ended up having an interview on Skype with my present school which is called the The Anglo-American School of Moscow. I felt like the [00:06:00] interview went great. I liked where they were coming from. They happen to be one of the best international schools in the world and they were, of course, looking for a school psychologist position.
The whole special education services in international schools is still emerging. So not every school in the international community even has a school psychologist. So I was pretty limited in terms of my search and finding schools that would even need somebody like me to come in and do testing, crisis counseling, that sort of thing, and all the traditional roles that we do.
This was one school. I can’t say I made an overnight decision. I went back and forth with it and what I ultimately decided to do was take a leave of absence for a year from my job, I thought that was practical, and then I went in and moved to Moscow, Russia. I loved it so much. [00:07:00] I signed on for another year and left my job in New Jersey.
Dr. Sharp: Oh, wow. What a journey. There are many stops along the way that I want to talk to you about.
Dr. Joseph: Sure. Go ahead.
Dr. Sharp: That’s the five-minute version, but I have a feeling we can expand that.
Dr. Joseph: Yeah, there’s a lot more, especially in that decision-making and in my research. We can take this in any way that you want to.
Dr. Sharp: I’m curious. Where did you first hear or even know to look for a job like this? How did this even come on your radar?
Dr. Joseph: I have a friend who is a teacher in Bogota, Colombia, and he would tell me about international, and I had no idea what an international school was. Basically, these are private institutions [00:08:00] that cater towards generally English-speaking students and families. So you have children of diplomats, you have children of executives working in corporations, not always executives but international corporations, and they want to send their children to an English-speaking school and something that mirrors education in the United States and Canada, for example, which makes sense.
So I had no idea and he was telling me that you have this opportunity to immerse yourself in this culture, travel, and live abroad, which is something that always appealed to me. In my conversation with him, that piqued my interest. And that’s when I started to do my research on it and delved into it a little bit.
Dr. Sharp: Sure. Can you say again the website or the place where you were looking for these jobs?
Dr. Joseph: Sure. [00:09:00] From what I gathered, there are two main ones. The one I used is ISS-International School Services. The second main service is Search Associates.
So, for teachers, school psychologists, for counselors, they basically get credentialized. So these services are going to ensure that they have the right credentials and that’s usually, of course, certification in one of the states in the United States. They generally look for two years of teaching or school psychology or counseling experience. And then once they credential you, they open you up and you’re able to interview. You can start looking at what positions are available abroad through their portal on their website. [00:10:00] They have a great website. It’s really easy to find jobs. You hit a couple of buttons and you could apply for them and start interviewing.
Dr. Sharp: That’s fantastic. And then where does it go from there? You mentioned traveling to Atlanta for a conference of some sort. What does the process look like?
Dr. Joseph: Both ISS and Search Associates organize these job conferences probably somewhere between 3 and 5 a year. One of them happens to be in Atlanta. They usually offer one in Massachusetts and also in San Francisco within North America. They also have some in Asia typically for people who are already in the field, but for anybody interested in starting this out and just wants to explore and maybe go on some interviews, they do offer them a couple within the United States. And then you have an opportunity [00:11:00] to meet and speak with school leadership, and administrators to find out about the school. There are all kinds of presentations on specific schools throughout the world and it’s great for networking.
I used that opportunity to pick the brains of some of the other applicants who had been in the system or were new to it. I learned quite a bit from just a day or 2 at this conference.
Dr. Sharp: I bet. What are some of the questions that you asked or that one of us might ask on these interviews, or maybe a better way to phrase it is, what are you looking for in an international school when you are vetting them if that makes sense?
Dr. Joseph: Good question. I believe I already had a little bit of some knowledge. I’m trying to recall the name. There’s a really good research. It’s called International Schools [00:12:00] Review. It’s a blog with some articles and there’s also a forum that you can join. You may pay $20 or $30 a month, but basically, it gives you access to teachers who write reviews on all of these international schools from all over the world and talk about how they’re received in the countries, both personally and professionally, what it’s like to work for administrators in the school, what are the students like, what are their backgrounds generally, and that was a really good resource for me to identify what were the most reputable schools.
You know you’re going to get a salary, they’re going to pay you, and they’re going to do what they say in terms of getting you an apartment or at least facilitating that, and all those personal things that come up when you put into [00:13:00] the grand scheme of things that, yeah, Hey I’m moving to Moscow, Russia. I want to ensure that there are certain things in place to make it comfortable.
Dr. Sharp: Absolutely. That’s something I wanted to talk about. I’m trying to stay in order just for my own brain’s organization, but I do want to ask about how you negotiate or determine what they provide or don’t provide that whole area.
Dr. Joseph: At my school, Anglo-American school, we’re fortunate that they treat us very well. They go out of their way for the expat staff and they provide housing. That’s something that appealed to me because with the language and cultural barriers in Russia, I imagine it’s pretty difficult to go out and find [00:14:00] an apartment and if you haven’t been to the country, finding the right location, et cetera. That’s one area that was certainly appealing. I know some other international schools will provide a stipend and maybe set you up with a realtor, and give you some suggestions, which is fine, but for me in a country like Russia, mainly due to the language difficulties because I don’t speak Russian, that was that was really nice for them to do that. That was appealing.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. What are some other amenities or benefits that one might look for or hope for in this kind of setup?
Dr. Joseph: I talked a little bit about the apartment. I can tell you one thing that our staff loves is we were able to get Amazon and especially in this pandemic, that’s been…
Dr. Sharp: That’s crucial.
Dr. Joseph: The staff values [00:15:00] that. Again, a lot of this was new to me, but there’s something called the… I should mention my school, the Anglo-American school is affiliated with the US embassy and also the British embassy and Canadian embassy. I find that’s a little bit unusual in the international schools, most have, if they had an official relationship with the US embassy, they’ve moved beyond that and become just private schools, but we still do have that relationship.
There are some perks with that. The staff, we have diplomatic passports which again is unusual. So within Russia, we’re considered diplomats. That certainly has some perks and advantages to it. Where I was going with this was Amazon, there’s something called a diplomatic pouch. So we’re able to receive mail and packages [00:16:00] free of charge through the U.S. embassy.
Dr. Sharp: Oh, I see.
Dr. Joseph: That’s one of those perks that people really like. If they choose to get a car, they have a diplomatic license plate and things like that.
Dr. Sharp: I was going to ask too about, and this is just my naivety with international living, is a diplomatic passport different than a work visa, or is it a special kind, or do you have both? Or how does that?
Dr. Joseph: I think it’s different than a work visa. With the diplomatic passport comes the right to work, but you but we are under the auspices of the United States Embassy. Considering the political climate in Russia, I think that is something that is appealing to the staff as well. It feels like there’s an extra layer [00:17:00] of some protection. If things got bad here in a political sense, you would be treated like a diplomat.
Dr. Sharp: Sure. That’s some peace of mind, I think. A lot of people would agree.
Dr. Joseph: Absolutely.
Dr. Sharp: Now, what about things like health insurance and retirement? Is that even part of the deal?
Dr. Joseph: Yeah. There’s health insurance. We have great health insurance. It’s through Cigna. We’re covered in any country, so whether you’re on vacation during Christmas break, or you go back to the U.S., we’re covered. Again, this is one of the one of the best International schools in the world. I’m not familiar with all the financial packages of all of them. I can only speak from this experience. The health care is great. I’m trying to think of what else might be appealing for any school psychologists who are crazy enough to go out and do this.
This is a good one. We don’t pay any [00:18:00] U.S. income tax on this. That’s something that people find interesting and maybe a good feeling. If you stay technically, there’s… if you stay out of the country, out of the US for 330 days a year, which I do, there’s a foreign tax exemption so you don’t have to pay up to a certain amount US federal taxes.
Dr. Sharp: I see. That is interesting. Goodness. You just said, for someone crazy enough to consider this kind of arrangement, it makes me want to ask from your perspective, what personality characteristics and traits lend themselves to a job like this if someone is considering?
Dr. Joseph: That’s a good question. I don’t recall exactly, but I’m sure that came up on [00:19:00] my interview. I think this would be a really difficult gig for people who aren’t comfortable spending large amounts of time abroad. I mentioned I had traveled. I hadn’t lived anywhere, but I did spend quite a bit of time traveling mostly in the summer. So it could be one or two months. And that gave me a pretty good comfort level in different cultures and different countries. So that’s one.
I think people really have to have a strong resolve and maybe even independence, especially if we look at what’s going on right now. In the middle of the pandemic, I’m in Russia, dealing with a different government’s approach to the Coronavirus. Even though we’re able to get back, it’s very complicated and [00:20:00] difficult. There are limited flights and there’s no assurance that we could get back into Russia when the school year starts in August.
I bring that up because I do think people who would want to go into this really need to consider that despite the great financial packages and comfort, these schools do go out of their way to make you comfortable, life abroad is not always easy. You’re not living in your culture and your native language. And when things like this come up, it really will test your resolve and commitment to living abroad because that’s what you’re doing.
Dr. Sharp: Of course. I wonder, could you talk about some of the challenges, both pre-coronavirus and now during coronavirus, that have been most [00:21:00] prominent for you in this adventure?
Dr. Joseph: Sure. I would say, from a professional standpoint, working as a school psychologist in the international community has certain challenges because not only are you learning about Russian culture, but we have students from over 50 different countries. So you get thrown in there and you have to be mindful about cultural differences. I equate some of the countries there in terms of stigma and mental health, for example, they might be 30 or 40 years behind maybe where we are in the United States with acceptance and how they process a diagnosis of autism, ADHD, or a reading disability. So I had to [00:22:00] be mindful of that and learn about different cultures and work my way through it.
One of the other challenges professionally is when I want to refer a child for a psychiatric evaluation. We really have limited resources, especially English-speaking psychiatrists whom I felt comfortable with. I hope none of them are listening right now, but I haven’t found one in almost two years that I’m comfortable referring a child to. That’s certainly a big challenge for us.
Dr. Sharp: I could see that. This is, again, another naive question, but do you have the option to refer for telehealth psychiatry? Can they be prescribed in a different country? I don’t that’s […]
Dr. Joseph: That’s a good question. There are all [00:23:00] kinds of legal implications in terms of bringing some of the medicines across the border. What I’m finding is, the psychiatrists in Russia are prescribing antiquated medications. They’re not up to date with what we’re prescribing in the US. A lot of children will, if they have the opportunity to go to Europe or the United States and get seen by a psychiatrist and then try to get enough dosages to bring back to Russia and stock up, but as you know Jeremy, the psychiatric care is the maintenance of it. So even though you make an initial diagnosis and prescribe medication, you need to be on top of how the child is responding and then the onus is on the parents to do that.
[00:24:00] Dr. Sharp: Right. That does seem complicated. My goodness. It sounds like there are some professional challenges. I know we’re going to get into the work in more detail here in just a bit, but I wonder, have there been other personal, emotional, or cultural challenges that you’re willing to share just for folks who might be considering this and wondering what to anticipate?Dr. Joseph: In terms of anticipation, I felt very welcomed here in Moscow. I think in the United States we have certain stigmas of Russian people as a bit colder personality-wise. I would define them as reserved and cautious but they are wonderful people once you get to know them; very welcoming, warm, intelligent, [00:25:00] cultured. And so that’s been maybe the best part of my experience is learning about this amazing, unique culture. Making friendships and getting to know local people has been fantastic.
With that, I would say that the language is probably the biggest barrier to making connections and even making your way around Moscow. When I first arrived, I had a colleague who advised me, there are two different types of people who come here as expats- people who are committed from day one to learning the language and people who don’t. There’s no middle ground. Unfortunately, I was in the latter. I haven’t picked up the language. With that comes some challenges, of course.
Dr. Sharp: Absolutely. Russian seems like a hard language to learn. It doesn’t bear a lot of resemblance to any language I’m familiar with.
[00:26:00] Dr. Joseph: Absolutely. I speak Spanish a bit and that certainly in comparison is a much easier acquisition, I think, for English language speakers.Dr. Sharp: I got you. Thanks for talking through that. I am curious about the work, of course. Before I transition, I meant to ask a long time ago, how did you pick the location that you picked specifically Moscow in Russia? I imagine there are lots of choices.
Dr. Joseph: Prior to working here, I had come as a tourist and I liked the city, but frankly speaking, I never had a dream of living here. So when I went into investigating different opportunities abroad, I wasn’t specifically thinking of Moscow, but this position happened to be opened and I was familiar with the excellent [00:27:00] reputation of the school. So I went forward with the interview and it just seemed like a great fit. That’s basically how I ended up here. I was impressed with the folks that interviewed me. Again, knowing the background of the school, I thought it was a really good move for me if I wanted to get into the international community as a psychologist.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah. Is there something to be said for that? Once you’ve worked at one international school, does that open doors to others if you want to go elsewhere?
Dr. Joseph: Absolutely. That’s a good question. I imagine schools are looking for people. Again, I talked about some of the adjustment and assimilation difficulties when you’re moving abroad. I imagine schools are looking for people who have evidence that they’re comfortable living and working abroad, and they have experience in the international community. That’s not to say that they rule out people who haven’t, but it certainly opens some inroads and [00:28:00] some doors. It’s like any professional community. You make connections with people, you hear of different openings, you’re familiar with school leadership, and then they go you to another school and you stay in contact. So it’s very similar to how that works in the United States, I’d imagine.
Dr. Sharp: That makes sense. Now, am I right in thinking that the world of international school psychologists is fairly small? Like, once you’re in it, you know people and easy to make connections?
Dr. Joseph: Yeah, it is pretty small. I think when I was searching, I found maybe 10 international schools that I knew of that had traditional school psychology positions where you’re doing assessments, counseling, teacher consultation and all the things that we do as school psychologists, and they weren’t counselor [00:29:00] positions. So maybe about 10.
I was fortunate enough to go to an international conference last fall, it was in Sofia, Bulgaria, and I met one or two other school psychologists that were working in international school. So that was a great chance to understand what their school was like and how they were being used in that role as a psychologist.
Dr. Sharp: Nice.
Dr. Joseph: We’re very few but it’s great to connect with them when you have that opportunity.
Dr. Sharp: Oh, I’m sure. Talk about collegiality, man. That might be a nice segue to what the work actually looks like. And my first question with that is, as a non school psychologist, I’m just a regular old clinical psychologist, do you happen to know if these positions are open to those of us in my position who [00:30:00] are not school psychologist specifically but do regular assessment or neuropsychological assessment?
Dr. Joseph: That’s a good question. When I interviewed, I think this school particularly was looking for a doctorate in either school psychology or clinical psychology. So I imagine clinical psychologists would certainly meet the requirements, especially if they had a background in assessment as you do. So if you’re looking to move abroad, Jeremy, I’ll point you in the right direction.
Dr. Sharp: Yeah, that’s not out of the normal possibility. My wife was a world traveler before we met and has lived abroad and she, I think always harbors that in the back of her mind as an option. So who knows? I like to keep all the doors open.
Dr. Joseph: Of course.
Dr. Sharp: So what does your work actually look like day to day, week to week?
[00:31:00] Dr. Joseph: A little bit more of a background on school. There are about I’d say 1100 students pre-k through 12 and I’m the only psychologist. So, I do have a hefty schedule. Most of my responsibilities are within conducting psychoeducational assessments. That probably takes up maybe 70% or 80% of my time when we talk about actually conducting the assessments, report writing, and giving feedback to parents and then designing interventions with teachers and administrators. That is quite time-consuming and as you can imagine the student population that size and just one psychologist, there’s quite a bit of work to do, but I do have the opportunity to do individual counseling sessions this past year. I also did a social skills group [00:32:00] or elementary students are on the spectrum and then, of course, crisis management. That comes up in every school. So I’m there to do crisis counseling. And also I’m one of the child protection officers. So any suspicion of child abuse, neglect, and that kind of thing. I’m really proud to say that we move very quickly on that and I think effectively.Dr. Sharp: That’s fantastic. Wow. You host a variety of roles or something.
Dr. Joseph: Yeah. As a psychologist, there aren’t boring days. There’s quite a bit of work to do.
Dr. Sharp: That’s true. Let’s talk about the assessment and what that looks like. I want to know is it much different from what [00:33:00] assessment looks like in a U.S. school?
Dr. Joseph: I would say fairly similar. I have access to all the instruments that I did in the U.S. I think the main difference, Jeremy, is that even though we have an international or an American-based curriculum, we’re not under the auspices of the Department of Education or a state department. We’re a private school. Obviously, we’re abroad, so we have quite a bit of leeway in terms of how we’re delivering some educational models as that relates to to special education process. We certainly do our best to follow IDEA and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and and using those federal guidelines to implement [00:34:00] IEPs and ensure that a child with a disability is getting appropriate services.
With that said, we are not able to provide interventions to every type of students. I think we serve children with mild and moderate needs fairly well, and I’ll give some examples of that, but students who, let’s say, are in the need of some significant special education services, we frankly can’t provide. We can’t provide quality services for students who are maybe are in that severe need level.
Dr. Sharp: Got you. Could you provide some examples of what that might look like? When you say moderate, severe in your setting?
Dr. Joseph: When we’re talking about maybe [00:35:00] mild needs, we’re talking about a student who maybe needs basically a 504 plan and we’re talking about extended time on tests, copies of notes, and maybe some teacher strategies. We might have a child who has mild attention deficit and they need some accommodations in the classroom to help redirect and focus and really work through that attention difficulty.
Moving more towards the the moderate needs students, we’re probably looking at students who have a diagnosed learning disability and they do need some remediation. So we have an Orton-Gillingham program. Children will be pulled out individually or in groups. We have a full time speech language pathologist. We consider that moderate range a child is getting speech and language therapy.
We also have a really strong [00:36:00] occupational therapy program mainly in the elementary school. So we would also consider that maybe a moderate service where children are getting occupational therapy.
Once we start getting into making academic modifications; modifying what a child is required to do in the classroom, we start to consider them as potentially a student that is not a good fit for our school. Again, being a private school, we don’t accept everybody. When I worked in a public school, of course, we accepted everybody and we had the resources to service students who were maybe in that severe need and develop therapeutic programs and ABA programs for [00:37:00] children on the spectrum. We had those resources, but quite frankly, we don’t have the resources right now to service some of those children with significant needs.
Dr. Sharp: I see. Where might you refer those families in those cases?
Dr. Joseph: My second year here. That has been probably my biggest professional challenge and even quite heartbreaking when the school leadership has determined that when we have an existing student, it’s even more difficult than maybe a student who’s applying, that we’re not the best fit and we can’t provide an effective education for that child because we know that there are really limited options in Moscow for servicing children, let’s say with severe learning disability or autism or [00:38:00] cognitive impairment. We’re in a tough spot in those situations. And I think the school leadership has taken the position to work with integrity in saying, we understand that maybe there aren’t the best options out there like they are in the US, but we don’t feel like we can provide an education.
I support that decision because we really don’t have, like I said, special education services where we’re modifying the curriculum and providing maybe some intensive services for some of these students. I think we’re pretty good with providing the services and accommodations for children that need some extra support. So, that’s been a challenge this year, Jeremy.
Dr. Sharp: It sounds like it. I could see that being really [00:39:00] tough to deliver that news to a family.
Dr. Joseph: Absolutely.
Dr. Sharp: I think that a lot of us, we struggle with that here, if there are resources that a kiddo or family needs that just aren’t available. That’s always a hard conversation. I imagine there’s some parallels to that in your setting as well.
Dr. Joseph: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Sharp: While I’m thinking about it, and we’re on this topic, do much about the non school psychological services over there in terms of, are there private practitioners or agencies that do psychological assessment or neuropsychological testing there? And if so, what’s that look like?
Dr. Joseph: Yeah. In Moscow, there is a medical clinic. It’s called the European Medical Center. They have English speaking physicians. They also have a few English speaking psychologists. One in particular I know [00:40:00] who does neuropsychological assessments is a Russian psychologist but he’s fluent in English. They’ve been a good resource for us. But in terms of doing those traditional psychoeducational evaluations and getting them done in English and also having them be conducted in a way that it’s useful for the school to understand the child and understands his or her needs and to implement some special education services, those are very difficult to find in Moscow.
As I mentioned, I’m the only psychologist in our school and I think I’m the only English speaking psychologist in all the international schools in Moscow that I’m aware of. So we have a dearth of psychological resources for English speaking [00:41:00] clientele in Russia, for sure.
Dr. Sharp: I see. Within your school, what does the special ed process look like? Is it similar to a U.S. school where in terms of how kids get referred for evaluation and then the meetings and…
Dr. Joseph: Yeah, we have a lot of meetings.
Dr. Sharp: Good to know those things don’t change.
Dr. Joseph: Yeah, that doesn’t change across the border. I would say, Jeremy, it’s fairly similar to my work in the US in terms of a teacher. Usually, the referral comes from a teacher. The only difference I see is parents were requesting evaluations more frequently in the United States, but we have a child study team. It’s a committee where we listen to teacher concerns and then based on that meeting, we make a [00:42:00] determination if I start the assessment process. It starts from that referral committee, which is made up of the administrator or a few administrators, the child’s guidance counselor, and the classroom teacher.
Dr. Sharp: I see. That sounds good. Do y’all have an MTSS process or structure there to deliver intervention or is it less formal than that? MTSS, the Multi-Tiered System of Supports, the tier 1 tier 2 tier 3 in terms of intervention in schools or RTI. It used to be called RTI.
Dr. Joseph: RTI. Yeah. We are, as I mentioned, international schools are a bit behind in special education delivery service models. So in terms [00:43:00] of RTI, we are moving to that. That’s something that I had advocated for when I came aboard. I felt like it was needed and probably given some of the… how we’re delivering, I felt it would be the most efficient way to deliver services to our children. So we’re making some attempts to move to that RTI model, for sure.
Dr. Sharp: I see. Jumping back out to the private sector, if that’s what you want to call it, what does the health insurance situation look like in Russia? If people did want to go for outside services, are those covered or is it private pay? Do you know what that looks like?
Dr. Joseph: For the locals, for Russians, I’m not quite sure about that. I think they have access. The state provides access to a baseline of [00:44:00] medical services. But if you’re looking at psychological services, assuming you’re not institutionalized, if you’re looking for self-development or strategies that work with anxiety, I’m not exactly sure if that is picked up by insurance or if they have to pay out of pocket.
Within the expat community, I know, for example, let’s take American diplomats, they certainly have health coverage and that coverage tends to allow them to obtain psychological services with reimbursement.
Dr. Sharp: Great.
Dr. Joseph: So the expat community is in a good position in terms of reimbursement, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s the access to in-person [00:45:00] resources. You had mentioned teletherapy before and I’m finding that quite a number of people in our expat community are determining that that’s their best option here in Moscow. If they live in Australia then link up with on Skype with with an Australian therapist.
Dr. Sharp: I can see that. This time has opened the world up for telehealth services. Like I said, my wife was also a therapist and she’s been getting inquiries from individuals living abroad, which is interesting and funny to us, but it seems like people are open to that now.
What else would people benefit from knowing about being a school psychologist in an international school that I maybe haven’t asked about?
Dr. Joseph: I think we’ve covered a fair amount. [00:46:00] I think the main thing is you’re going to have to go, if somebody out there who’s interested in this, you have to go into it knowing that the community that you’re going to be working in, you may not have a lot of collegial support from other psychologists. So it’s really important for me to maintain some of those relationships I’ve developed over my career in the United States in terms of supervision or just running something by some people that I trust because, as I mentioned, I feel like I’m maybe the only American psychologist in Moscow and that could be certainly isolating. I have my teacher colleagues and counselor colleagues, and it’s great, we collaborate all the time and that’s valuable, but getting let’s say running something by another school psychologist where in [00:47:00] United States, I was able to just walk down the next office, I don’t have that. So I think that’s a challenge that people need to be aware of.
Dr. Sharp: I’m glad that you highlighted that. It seems like the, I don’t know if you call it isolation, but that variety of feeling is happening both culturally, but also within the school and so knowing that someone might need to be prepared for that and willing to reach out or maintain the connection with folks in the U.S.
Dr. Joseph: For sure.
Dr. Sharp: Just thinking about people who might be interested in pursuing this path. Are there other resources, places to look, ways to do research, anything that could help start moving in this direction?
Dr. Joseph: There is an International School Psychology Association. People can find [00:48:00] that through a Google search. They’re a good resource. If people are interested in school psychology specifically, then I would start with the two organizations I mentioned before, International School Services and Search Associates.
I remember when I first started my search for international positions, I didn’t find anything outside of this international school community. So if there are clinical psychologists that would like to work abroad, schools are nice, but I don’t want to work there, I want to work in a hospital or a clinic, I honestly haven’t found any great resources for that. I think you’d have to narrow your focus on where you want to be and then start looking at expatriate medical centers like I mentioned before, the one we have in [00:49:00] Moscow, the European Medical Center.
I still think that there’s a great need for, in my two years, I’m seeing a great need for competent psychologists who can provide services to the expat community and also locals who are proficient in English. That’s certainly an area of high need as well. As I mentioned, I think some of the standards and requirements, and I know some of the standards and requirements for licensing as a psychologist in Russia are, there isn’t a comparison with North America, for example.
Licensing as I know it as a psychologist in Russia may require even less than an undergraduate degree. And sometimes [00:50:00] it seems like just attending an Institute and that could be a week or two of training and then you’re hanging up a shingle. So when we’re talking about just making sure you’re seeing somebody who has… what we consider appropriate credentials in the Western world there are some vast differences.
Dr. Sharp: I see. It’s good to keep in mind. I do have one more question as I’m thinking through things. You mentioned earlier that you have students from, you say, 50 different countries.
Dr. Joseph: Yeah, a little over 50 countries.
Dr. Sharp: How does that work in terms of assessment with all of those students? I would imagine there’s a variety of languages and cultures. How do you navigate that?
Dr. Joseph: We have a strong ESL program. So if a student comes in it or not, they’re not speaking English [00:51:00] fluently, we provide really intensive English language learning resources, so we really want to get them up to speed. And even in fact, that’s probably an as I’m aware, an entrance admissions requirement that they, unless we’re talking about, we’re considering somebody who’s maybe in preschool, but older students certainly need to be proficient in English. So that minimizes a little bit of some of those assessment difficulties.
With that said, I think we opened up our discussion today about the cultural language differences and how important that is. I certainly when I’m doing an assessment and I’m coming to conclusions and writing to my report, I always take into consideration this child’s cultural history, their language, and sometimes that’s really challenging when we’re looking to identify a specific learning [00:52:00] disability or an attention difficulty, we really have to look at that interaction of English language acquisition and how fluent is that student in using English in reading and writing.
I have to admit. There are some times where at least I feel somewhat of a pressure, maybe even to make a diagnosis where I’m not confident that I can’t rule out the possibility that this is really an ESL thing. So there’ve been a few instances where I had to really stand my ground and say we need to allow this child more time. Let’s get it another six months before we really go down that road of assessment because I want to make sure that we’re assessing a child and we’re getting valid results.
Dr. Sharp: Absolutely. I’m glad to hear you say that. I know that those examples are out there. You got to stand your ground sometimes. We’re [00:53:00] having a lot of discussion here in the US right now, of course, about culture and race and how that’s impacting assessment and how necessary it is to be mindful of those factors as we make diagnoses.
Dr. Joseph: If I could add on to that point too, when I do these assessments, I like to emphasize to parents that the normative data is predominantly, or it may even be exclusively from North America, from the United States. So let’s say I’m assessing a child from Indonesia, and I’m getting what I think are interesting results, and I’m going to come to a conclusion on a diagnosis, I have to be really mindful that they don’t fit the normative data culturally. For example, if we’re using a WISC, it’s the best instrument, or the Woodcock Johnson, the best instrument for [00:54:00] assessing Cognitive ability and achievement. However, we just have to be mindful that those children don’t have the same cultural language experiences as the children in the United States, and that can certainly have an effect on the results.
Dr. Sharp: That’s a really important point to highlight. That’s always a thread that runs through our assessments, right?
Dr. Joseph: Absolutely.
Dr. Sharp: Gosh. This has been a fascinating discussion. I know that we could continue to talk for a long time. I hope this has given some introduction to folks who are considering this path. It’s super interesting and it seems like you’re enjoying it. That’s the important thing.
Dr. Joseph: It’s been a wonderful experience professionally and personally. I don’t regret a minute of it. So it’s been fantastic. If any [00:55:00] psychologists, clinical/school psychologists want to reach out to me, when you do your summary or description of this, feel free to put my contact information. I’d be happy to be a resource to them.
Dr. Sharp: Great. I was going to ask, so thank you for preempting that question. We’ll definitely put your contact info in the show notes so that people could reach out. I would imagine people might have questions. Awesome.
Joseph, thanks for your time. This was this is truly enjoyable.
Dr. Joseph: My pleasure, Jeremy. Thank you for having me.
Dr. Sharp: Hey y’all, thanks again for tuning in to my episode with Dr. Joseph Graybill. There are plenty of links in the show notes if you want to do some research and start to figure out if working in an international school could be a good fit for you. I know that I spent some time with these links after our conversation, and it’s really just kept it in the front of my mind as a possibility [00:56:00] for a little ways down the road. We’ll see.
All right. Stay tuned. I will be coming to you with more clinical episodes now that our international series is done. As always, you can expect a business episode this Thursday. We’ll be talking about typical tasks that are good for a virtual assistant to take on in a testing practice.
If you have not subscribed to the podcast, I would certainly invite you to do so. You can hit follow on Spotify or subscribe and iTunes. And if you like what you hear, drop a five-star rating on iTunes. It’s really easy. You just click on your rating and it punches it in just like that. If you have any suggestions for feedback or are tempted to give it less than five stars, shoot me a message and let me know why; jeremy@thetestingpsychologist.com.
All right, y’all. My [00:57:00] pleasure as always. I will catch you next time.
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