About

Valerie B. Shapiro, PhD, is an associate professor jointly appointed in Social Welfare and Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. She serves as the Co-Director of the Center for Prevention Research in Social Welfare and has been recognized as a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar. Her research focuses on the prevention of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems in children and youth through the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of effective prevention practices. Dr. Shapiro's scholarship emphasizes promoting evidence-based prevention approaches within communities, successful program implementation, routine assessment of youth outcomes, and the use of big data for continuous improvement in social and emotional learning. She has contributed to the field through her leadership in initiatives such as the Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health and her involvement in producing influential policy discussion papers. Her work is supported by various foundations and government agencies, and she has published extensively in interdisciplinary and social work journals.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Developmental psychology
• Epistemology
• Engineering
• Social psychology
• Economic growth
• Philosophy
• Mechanical engineering
• Applied psychology
• Psychiatry
• Public relations
• Demography
• Medicine
• Clinical psychology

Selected publications

• How to Coordinate School-Based Mental Health Services: Recommendations from Experienced Interprofessional Teams

  Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation · 2026-02-26

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Coordination of Services Teams: Bridging the Silos of School-Based Mental Health

  Contemporary School Psychology · 2026-01-03

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Coordination of Services Teams (COSTs) facilitate interprofessional collaboration to improve school-based mental health (SBMH) services by bridging the education and mental health systems. There is a dearth of research on the core components and functions of COSTs. Through an embedded case study of COSTs at five schools within one county’s SBMH initiative, this study addresses the following two research questions: What are the key elements of a COST and how do COSTs operate in schools? Six group interviews were conducted with 32 participants, including COST members and county program leaders. Participants provided a comprehensive description of the structure and functions of a COST. Findings revealed three key elements of a COST: (a) a diverse and inclusive team composition, (b) a universal referral system for identifying student concerns, and (c) a coordinated system for centralizing student support services. Additionally, findings highlighted the importance of adapting COSTs to fit unique school contexts and meet the needs of local communities. This study provides actionable guidance for school leaders and mental health practitioners aiming to develop or refine COST processes to create more effective, comprehensive student support systems.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Role of Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Pedagogies on Teacher Burnout

  Urban Education · 2026-02-12

  articleSenior author

  Culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies (CRSPs) are foundational for transforming students’ learning environments, yet little is known about their impact on teachers. Although teachers generally recognize the need for CRSPs, limited resources and competing demands place teachers at risk for burnout. We investigated CRSPs as a predictor of burnout, and the influence of demographic moderators among California in-service educators. Findings demonstrated that teacher use of students’ cultural backgrounds predicted decreased burnout, while considering the impact of racism increased burnout, with grade level of instruction demonstrating significant moderating effects. Implications for teacher educators, school leaders, and policy makers are discussed.

  PublisherDOI

• Promoting the use of research evidence from websites: optimising microsurveys as feedback loops to drive improvement

  Evidence & Policy · 2025-06-12

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Educators' use of research evidence (URE) from intermediary websites is not well understood. Current studies measure URE through periodic, retrospective user reports or by passively tracking website usage, neither of which adequately inform the continuous improvement efforts of intermediaries. This study examines the feasibility of microsurveys - brief, behaviour-triggered surveys embedded within websites - as a tool for assessing and informing the improvement of URE. Specifically, this article explores configurations to optimise microsurvey response rates. Methods: A plug-in embedded microsurveys across web pages. Microsurveys included a five-point Likert emoticon rating scale and an open-ended follow-up. Four pilot studies tested variations in: (a) question wording, (b) time delays before triggering, (c) number of clicks, and (d) optimised conditions integrating the best configurations. Chi-square tests and logistic regression analysed differences in response rates and relationships between conditions, scores and response rates. Results: Response rates improved by discarding low-performing (that is, low response rate) questions, selecting better time delays, and reducing the number of clicks to complete the microsurvey. Likert scale response rates increased from 4.18 per cent to 11.31 per cent under optimised conditions. Follow-up response rates remained stable, with higher engagement associated with favourable Likert scores. Conclusions: This study establishes the potential of microsurveys for measuring URE from intermediary websites, achieving response rates understood to yield reliable estimates for informing the promotion of evidence in practice. Future research should explore additional configurations to further optimise response rate, integrate microsurveys with observational and behavioural data to assess validity, and study integrating microsurvey feedback into organisational change processes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “It All Starts with Us”: Exploring teachers’ efforts to increase Adult SEL in practice

  Social and Emotional Learning Research Practice and Policy · 2025-02-15 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this paper, we analyze presentations made by 212 teachers who were tasked with implementing adult social and emotional learning (SEL) practices in their local context and sharing about their efforts. We draw our sample from the University of California, Berkeley’s SEL Foundations course; an online graduate course for in-service educators. Course participants completed a final assignment over a three-week period, implementing one or more Adult SEL practices, and reflecting on implementation set-backs and successes. We generated five themes depicting the landscape of Adult SEL among these educators: (1) relationship building (e.g., attending social events, seeking out peer support); (2) lifestyle changes (e.g., sleep hygiene, movement); (3) self-reflection (e.g., journaling); (4) mindfulness (e.g., meditation, mindful awareness); and (5) boundary setting (e.g., leaving at contract time, limiting phone usage). We also explore these teachers’ reflections on their practice (e.g., successes and challenges) to facilitate a more enhanced understanding of the work of implementing Adult SEL. This systematic inquiry of Adult SEL practice illustrates the choices teachers make when asked to do a project to improve their Adult SEL. Findings offer valuable insights into what teachers today may want—and need—from their schools, districts, and the field of SEL more broadly.

  PublisherDOI

• Centring Parent Voice: Exploring Popularized Parenting Posts to Understand Parents' Information and Support Needs

  Child & Family Social Work · 2025-07-28

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Despite the effectiveness of evidence‐based parenting programmes in improving parenting skills, reducing child maltreatment and promoting children's emotional and cognitive development, their impact is hindered by persistently low participation rates. At the same time, parents are increasingly turning online for parenting content. Analysing this content can offer insights into parents' preferences for parenting information and illuminate ways to improve programme design and participation. This study investigates the (1) content parents popularize on parenting forums, (2) styles parents use to post and interact, and (3) differences between mother‐centric and father‐centric forums. Data were collected from three major parenting forums on Reddit using the platform's self‐moderated voting system. The 10 most popular posts and top five comments per post ( N = 180) were content analysed. Findings demonstrate that parents discussed a variety of challenges (e.g., grief and societal pressures) and successes (e.g., establishing safety/trust), often favouring storytelling over direct advice‐seeking and engaging in supportive interactions. Whereas mother‐centric and father‐centric forums shared similarities, mother‐centric discussions covered a broader range of topics and were more interactive. Findings suggest integrating popular parenting topics through storytelling, incorporating peer support, and considering role‐specific interventions in the design and dissemination of parenting programmes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Integrated and responsive implementation support strategies: A qualitative analysis of implementation plans to advance systemic social and emotional learning

  Maryland Shared Open Access Repository (USMAI Consortium) · 2025-12-30

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• “I Always Want to Learn More”: Exploring Teachers’ Motivations for Improving Their SEL Practice

  The New Educator · 2025-12-03 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Wellbeing, Work Climate, and Levers of Transformation for Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Implementation among California Educational Leaders in Spring 2025

  2025-09-14

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  CalHOPE Student Support was established as an effort to build capacity for the implementation of SEL in K-12 public schools across all counties in the state of California. As part of CalHOPE, County Offices of Education (COEs) work closely with focal schools and districts to support them in sustainable and equitable SEL implementation. To capture the state of SEL in California as of Spring 2025, 281 educational leaders (73% non-Hispanic White, 82% female) from 53 counties (90 COE leaders, 47 district office leaders, 144 school leaders) reported on their own wellbeing, conditions associated with their wellbeing (e.g., workplace climate), and their work to engage levers of SEL system transformation. This final report builds on prior reports by offering summative insights about trends that occurred from the beginning to the end of the CalHOPE data collection period (Fall 2023 to Spring 2025) for three educational settings (COE, district, school). In comparing the first (Fall 2023) and last (Spring 2025) time points for data collection in all three educational settings, we found that educational leaders consistently reported strong well-being and climate, and that any growth observed in these areas was not statistically significant. We did see statistically significant improvement in partnership activities at the COE and school levels, in SEL knowledge at the district and school levels, in SEL skills at the district and school levels, and in structures and routines at the district and school levels. Overall, this suggests that prior successes were sustained or experiencing small growth, with several new and noteworthy successes at the school and district levels. This final survey also asked leaders to reflect on their experience with CalHOPE over the past two years. Most leaders agreed that participation in CalHOPE benefited them personally/professionally, and that participation also benefited educators, students, and their schools or regions more broadly. Finally, looking across all time points of data from Summer 2023 through Spring 2025 (five time points total), several trends emerged. Observation #1: Positive SEL conditions at the COE level were maintained throughout the two school years (2023-2025). Observation #2: At the district and school levels, some conditions improved steadily over time: partnership activities, knowledge, and skills. Observation #3: At the district and school levels, some conditions were stronger in spring vs. fall terms: supports received and provided, and structures and routines. Altogether, these trends bode well for CalHOPE’s success in setting the stage for continued improvement in SEL implementation. The oft-cited goal of CalHOPE was to “build the capacity of the capacity builders” – developing the beliefs, knowledge, skills, and confidence of SEL implementation leaders to advance SEL statewide. The sizable and statistically significant improvement of SEL implementation leaders’ capacities, reported here, suggests CalHOPE achieved this goal.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Supporting the implementation of social and emotional learning: County office goals to promote wellbeing in schools

  Evaluation and Program Planning · 2025-06-04 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  CalHOPE Student Support was enacted as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial reckoning of 2020. In an attempt to minimize trauma, center equity, and build the resilience of California's young people, CalHOPE offers statewide funding and support to County Offices of Education (COEs), such that COEs can provide implementation support to augment the delivery of systemic Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in their regions. Each participating COE reported their implementation support goal(s) for the project. The text provided was coded to determine which domains of Systemic SEL (i.e., building foundational support, strengthening adult SEL, promoting student SEL, and building continuous improvement processes) and implementation support strategies (i.e., tools, training, technical assistance, and quality improvement/quality assurance) were represented. Results indicate that COEs were most likely to reference the systemic domains of building foundational support and strengthening adult SEL in their implementation support goals. COEs were most likely to reference the implementation support strategies of tools and technical assistance in these same goals. These results describe the naturally occurring variation among COEs in the focus and strategies of implementation support envisioned to improve the delivery of SEL throughout California.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Paul A. LeBuffe

  14 shared

• Bo‐Kyung Elizabeth Kim

  University of Southern California

  14 shared

• J. David Hawkins

  11 shared

• Juyeon Lee

  University of Hong Kong

  10 shared

• Jennifer L. Robitaille

  10 shared

• Byron J. Powell

  Washington University in St. Louis

  10 shared

• Sarah Accomazzo

  9 shared

• Sara J. Landes

  University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

  8 shared

Awards & honors

• William T. Grant Foundation Scholar
• Colgate University Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society Inductee (2…
• Society of Social Work & Research Dissertation Fellow (2012)
• NIMH Child Intervention, Prevention, & Services (CHIPS) Fell…
• Hellman Foundation Fellow (2014)