Beth J. Shaw, PhD has had an extensive 35+ year career as a psychologist, educator, and executive administrator in private residential, public, and early childhood school settings. Her professional endeavors have consistently focused on work with marginalized child and adolescent populations to improve their trajectories for better life outcomes.

As a psychologist she has worked with children, adolescents and their families who have experienced abuse and numerous other traumatic experiences throughout their developmental years. Dr. Shaw’s clinical expertise assisted clients to address their unique individual needs through progress on treatment goals. She has also conducted clinical assessments from birth through adolescent years. To demonstrate her belief that giving back to the profession is important, Dr. Shaw has provided clinical supervision to numerous doctoral-level interns and post-doctorate residents in support of their professional aspirations. Under her leadership, Milton Hershey School (MHS) became an APA-approved doctoral internship site for future psychologists.

Dr. Shaw served MHS as the Executive Director of Student Support Services for close to 20 years. In this strategic senior leadership role, she had responsibility for approximately 300 employees and contractors with fiscal oversight of annual operating budgets totaling over $40 million. She served as the school’s Chief Privacy Officer, and Dental, Medical, Psychological and Behavioral Health, and Social Work departments were under the scope of her leadership.

A few of Dr. Shaw’s key accomplishments include:
• Facilitated several school-wide initiatives to improve student safety policies, protocols and procedures pertaining to sexual abuse and boundary violations as well as educate administrators and staff on the traumatic impact of abuse and the critical roles of adults in minimizing the occurrence of abuse in an institutional setting. Created the original school-wide annual student safety check protocol.
• Served as the Child Protective Services (CPS) designated mandated reporter for 20 years.
• Led the school’s task force to revise CPS reporting requirements, policy, and procedures, as well as develop the mandatory training module for all employees and contractors when Pennsylvania significantly changed CPS law in 2014 and 2015.
• Appointed to lead the Presidential-initiated Task Force to increase compliance for Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Provided ongoing consultation to administrators and staff for Title III ADA matters.
• Led the COVID-19 Task Force that guided MHS (a private residential school for 2,000 pre-k through 12th grade students) through a global pandemic.
• Facilitated the development and presentation of a three-part series on the impact of traumatic experiences on children and adolescents and the effective interventions and strategies employees and families can implement to minimize, and in some cases reverse, the impact of trauma for both MHS and Catherine Hershey Schools, an early childhood learning program with multiple centers.

Dr. Shaw’s credentials, expertise and experiences are ideal for review of the following types of cases:
• Child abuse, with a subspecialty in sexual abuse, in private residential, public, and early childhood school settings
• Title III ADA discrimination of children and adolescents in a range of school settings
• Standards of care in private, day, and residential schools and early childhood settings