About Samantha Lewis, Ed.M., M.Phil., Ph.D.
Dr. Samantha Lewis is a New York State licensed psychologist and certified school psychologist. She received her Ph.D. in School Psychology from Columbia University. She earned Ed.M. and M.Phil. degrees from the same institution and has also completed Masters program coursework in Developmental Psychology. Dr. Lewis earned her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, with a BA in psychology. For the past eighteen years, Dr. Lewis has worked as a school psychologist in a public school district in Westchester County, New York.
As a school psychologist, Dr. Lewis has worked with children, adolescents, and young adults, from ages four to twenty-one, providing a comprehensive range of psychological services. This experience, combined with her earlier foundation of clinical experiences in hospital, clinic, and school settings with children and adolescents has helped her to acquire a highly specialized skill set as a clinician. She offers expert individual and group counseling, short-term and crisis intervention, risk assessments to evaluate and ensure student safety and well-being, classroom behavior intervention planning, and can provide consultation and collaboration with parents, teachers, related service providers, school administrators, private providers, and outside agencies alike.
Dr. Lewis has extensive experience working with children and adolescents who present with a variety of concerns including: depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, confusion about self, academic stress, emotional and behavioral dysregulation, school refusal, low academic motivation, social concerns and challenges, social skills deficits, attentional concerns, executive functioning challenges, high school to college transition issues, and family changes and related life stressors. In addition, Dr. Lewis has significant depth of experience in evaluating, supporting, and planning for children with developmental disabilities and learning differences. She has provided psychological services for school-based special class programs, for students who have diagnoses which include Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and other neurodevelopmental disabilities.
Dr. Lewis’ role as an advocate for the social-emotional and academic well-being of children and adolescents is at the core of her work. Through her experience with children across developmental levels, Dr. Lewis has developed a thoughtful approach to how best to support each individual she works with, whether a child, adolescent, or young adult and their families in the process of learning and applying new life skills. For many years, she has been a Chairperson of the Committee on Special Education (CSE) and Section 504 Teams at both the elementary and high school level, as well as Chairperson of the Committee on Preschool Special Education (CPSE) and she understands how to expertly prepare and support families for these meetings as a professional advocate. She engages in ongoing professional development in a variety of empirically-based therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and in the application of DBT within school settings in order to provide the most effective evidence-based strategies to support the social emotional growth of students. Tenets of DBT, such as mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness are all components of the therapeutic work she does with many of her students.
Dr. Lewis recently presented at the New York Association of School Psychologists' annual conference on the theme of "Building Bridges and Making Connections."(NYASP, October, 2020). During the conference, Dr. Lewis and her colleagues shared their work regarding their development and implementation of a TIER 1 Social-Emotional Learning program at their elementary school. Through the program, they've been teaching mindfulness skills and empowering children with the necessary skills to tolerate distress, regulate emotions and maintain positive relationships with peers and adults. Their curriculum also integrates diversity, equity, and identity lessons.
Dr. Lewis’ experience in the field of child psychology in the school setting has provided her with a depth of knowledge about how children spend the majority of their waking hours away from home and she has a broad understanding of how to help children better navigate in school and other social settings. Her perspective is invaluable in understanding the varied developmental challenges a young person may face at a given stage. Helping children and adolescents learn to develop resilience and to incorporate skills and strategies related to self-awareness is central to her practice and she believes that progress is best achieved in a nurturing and supportive environment. Dr. Lewis also believes strongly that dedicated communication, strong collaboration, and an unconditional, positive regard for children, adolescents, and their families are at the core of success in supporting all individuals.