The results orientation and time efficiency of brief intervention approaches are gaining
popularity in schools given limited staff and resources to address the needs of an
increasing number of vulnerable students. This article describes the School Success
Profile (SSP), a survey instrument collecting data from students about their schools,
neighborhoods, families, peers, and physical and psychological well-being. Summary
profiles and reports are generated from the data for working with students and other
stakeholder groups in planning and implementing brief or solution-focused
interventions. Training in brief intervention to address the multilevel needs of students
will be an important component of the proposed SSP Academy. [Brief Treatment and
Crisis Intervention 1:43–54 (2001)]
KEY WORDS: school success, brief interventions, solution-focused interventions, school
social work practice.
The problems confronting our public schools
have become a focus of national attention. Re-
cent school shootings provide graphic and terri-
fying images of school violence, and expose a
Brief Intervention in Schools:
The School Success Profile
Gary L. Bowen, PhD
Michael E. Woolley, MSW
Jack M. Richman, PhD
Natasha K. Bowen, PhD
myriad of personal and social problems students
and school professionals confront every day.
Teasing and bullying, disruptive and aggressive
behaviors, assaults, teen pregnancy, drug and
alcohol abuse, homelessness, abuse and neglect,
poverty, and other psychological, emotional, fa-
milial, social, and environmental problems are
among the issues students encounter at school
or bring with them across its threshold. These
problems are among the causes and conse-
quences of low student achievement and school
failure.
The extent and prevalence of these problems
may overwhelm a school’s resources for serving
at-risk or troubled students. School social work-
ers, counselors, psychologists, nurses, teachers,
From The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School
of Social Work.
Descriptive information about the School Success Profile
contained in this article is included in a related chapter,
“The School Success Profile: A Results Management Ap-
proach to Assessment and Intervention Planning,” which is
scheduled to appear in the Social Workers’ Desk Reference,
edited by A. R. Roberts and G. J. Greene (forthcoming from
Oxford University Press).
Contact author: Gary L. Bowen, PhD, School of Social
Work, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 301 Pitts-
boro Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550. E-mail:
glbowen@email.unc.edu.
© 2001 Oxford University Press
43

and principals are often frustrated in their at-
tempts to address the needs of an increasingly
vulnerable population of students. In the con-
text of limited resources and in search of prac-
tice models with greater intervention efficacy,
many school professionals are using brief inter-
vention practice models focusing more on re-
sults to be achieved than problems to be solved
(Bonnington, 1993; Corcoran, 1998; Dielman &
Franklin, 1998; Gingerich & Wabeke, 2001;
Kahn, 2000; LaFountain & Garner, 1996; Lave-
man, 2000; Littrel, Malia, & Vanderwood, 1995;
McConkey, 1998; Murphy, 1996; Osborn, 1999;
Pelsma, 2000; Teall, 2000; Williams, 2000).
Brief approaches to intervention are built
upon a constructivist epistemology (Gingerich
& Wabeke, 2001; Storts, 1995). Emphasis is
placed on empowering clients, adopting their
definition of the problem situation, and collabo-
rating with multiple stakeholders, in addition to
the client, in resolving problems and promoting
positive client results. Interventions are short-
term, strategic, and results oriented. Interven-
tions may be directed toward either individuals
or groups, including indirect interventions and
group consultations. In applying a solution-
focused approach in schools, Murphy (1996)
focused on the role of students, teachers, and
parents in resolving school problems and noted
the positive and cascading influence of small
changes in achieving positive outcomes for stu-
dents.
This article reviews the School Success Profile
(SSP) as an assessment instrument for brief in-
tervention planning with middle and high
school students. The SSP assesses students
within their broader social environment and
produces student profiles from the data for in-
forming both micro- and macro-level practice
interventions. Use of the SSP is entirely consis-
tent with the central values and assumptions
of brief intervention. The SSP facilitates brief,
solution-focused practice by incorporating stu-
dents’ perspectives on referral issues, by work-
ing collaboratively with students as partners to
achieve desired results, by broadening potential
intervention targets to include aspects of the so-
cial environment, and by identifying individual
and environmental assets to be used in the
change process.
The School Success Profile
Before meeting with a student, school-based
practitioners typically receive information
about the student in the form of a complaint or
problem description from someone other than
the student. Information can include adminis-
trative records, referral information from other
school staff, and verbal reports from teachers
and parents. For example, a school social worker
may receive a referral from a teacher about a
seventh-grade boy who sleeps in class, does
very little work, and is argumentative and op-
positional when confronted about his behavior.
The social worker may hear similar stories from
other teachers in the weekly staff meeting a few
days later. The social worker may then call the
home, talk to the mother who relates that he is
also difficult at home, and get permission to
meet with the young man.
In this scenario, the problem the social worker
wants to solve when he/she meets with the
young man is the “problem” defined and expe-
rienced by the teacher and the parent, not the
student. The solution in this scenario is likely to
be defined as changing the student’s school and
home behavior to meet adult expectations. In de
Shazer’s (1988) vernacular, the teacher and par-
ent are the complainants and the customers but
the child is doing all the changing.
The assumption underlying this approach to
intervention is that the student is deficient in
some way and must be “fixed.” Little or no at-
tention may be directed to structural and dy-
namic features of the social environment that
may be contributing to the student’s difficulties.
BOWEN ET AL.
44 Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention / 1:1 Summer 2001