Dr. Joe Holifield
Dr. Holifield is a clinical psychologist and school psychologist who has an independent practice in San Luis Obispo and Ventura, CA. He received his master’s degree in clinical psychology in 1995 from Xavier University-Cincinnati and doctoral degree in School Psychology from Loyola University-Chicago in 1999. In his early career, Dr. Holifield trained and worked as a psychologist in inpatient hospital settings, residential treatment centers, and therapeutic day treatment schools for children and adolescents.
From 1992-2015, Dr. Holifield taught various undergraduate and graduate courses in counseling and therapy, child development, child-adolescent psychopathology, cognitive assessment, personality assessment, tests and measurement, educational psychology, and research methods at several universities. He was an adjunct lecturer at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo from 2000-2015. He has delivered numerous professional presentations, workshops, papers, and research posters on various topics that have included clinical and neuropsychological assessment, child psychopathology, memory assessment/interventions, and executive functioning coaching. He has provided clinical supervision to mental health professionals throughout his career in clinical settings as well as schools.
With over 20 years of experience, has conducted behavioral threat assessments for many school districts, being the lead psychologist for threat assessment for several districts. He was originally trained in the U.S. Secret Service Model/NTAC model and presents Safer Schools Together (SST)’s Behavioral and Digital Threat Assessment® (BDTA), which is based on that model. Dr. Holifield has also presented workshops on threat assessment at the conventions of the California Association of School Psychologists Convention (CASP) and the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). He was an invited speaker and panelist and co-presenter on school violence at the Pre- Conference of the National Association of School Neuropsychologists. He has been a panelist discussing the importance of community prevention of targeted violence at the National STOP School Violence Conference and keynote speaker for a community-based mental health organization on mental health approaches to violence prevention. He continues to provide workshops and presentations at various venues.
From 2019-2023, Dr. Holifield designed, implemented, and evaluated a 4-year community-based threat assessment project (B-HARP) in San Luis Obispo County, CA. He is presently the Project Director for a 3-year federal school violence grant for two counties in CA. He is researching the community implementation of threat assessment practices and training community mental health professionals to connect with school-based teams. Dr. Holifield’s current research is tied to the goals and outcomes of both grants. These projects focused on the Salem-Keizer/Cascade K-12 Threat Assessment Model. The primary focus of his consulting work is bridging safety management by threat assessment teams with clinical management/intervention via community clinicians. He offers training and consultation to mental health agencies and clinicians in designing their organizational practices to interact or collaborate with threat assessment teams. He is a trainer for John Van Dreal Consulting, LLC providing threat assessment training for school-based threat assessment teams in the Salem-Keizer/Cascade K-12 Threat Assessment Model.