A sample of 483 school-based mental health professionals completed a survey about
the training they have received related to conducting bullying assessments in
schools, competence in conducting an assessment of bullying, and the bullying
assessment methods they used. Results indicate that school counselors were
usually informed about incidents of bullying more frequently than school
psychologists. Whereas the majority of school-based mental health professionals
surveyed reported some level of competence in using assessment tools for
bullying, few reported using empirically based instruments to assess for
bullying. This article discusses results and implications, namely, the need to
identify clinically meaningful tools for the assessment of bullying and the need
to adopt more formal and empirically based methods of assessment in schools.
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