William Dikel, M.D. is a child and adolescent psychiatrist who consults locally and nationally to school districts and to state departments of education. He has written mental health plans for many school districts and conducted a program evaluation of the Hawaii Department of Education’s School Based Behavioral Health program. He provides expert witness services in due process and civil hearings for both school districts and for parents’ attorneys. He is a member of the American School Board Association’s Council of School Attorney’s IDEA Reauthorization task force. He is an adjunct clinical professor at the University of Minnesota, and has been an adjunct professor in the University of Missouri’s Center for the Advancement of Mental Health Practices in the Schools. He is a leader of the Tier 3 Treatment community of practice group for the Center for School Mental Health, and has been a member of the American School Health Association’s task force on school mental health policy. He has written several articles on school mental health and school mental health law, and is the author of the book, “The Teacher’s Guide to Student Mental Health” published by W.W. Norton. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s 2015 Sidney Berman Award for outstanding achievement in school mental health.
Dr. Dikel's school consultation includes creating mental health plans for school districts, consultation about individual students, maximizing available funding streams, providing cost-effective services, co-locating mental health diagnostic and treatment services into school districts, providing in-service presentations, and assisting in data gathering and outcome analysis.
Dr. Dikel has given over 100 state and national presentations on topics including diagnosis and treatment, criminal justice, school mental health, sexual abuse, violence, suicide, behavioral analysis, psychiatric medications, substance use disorders, psychiatric disability, mental health funding, multi-system collaboration, integrative care, mental health law, public health and mental health policy.
View Dr. Dikel's Expert Witness Profile.
William R. Dikel, MD
From anxiety and depression to ADHD, autism spectrum disorders, behavior disorders, substance use disorders, and psychoses, this practical book provides essential information on how mental health disorders are diagnosed and treated, how they tend to manifest at school, and how they affect students’ emotions, behaviors, and ability to learn. It explains why traditional behavioral interventions are often unsuccessful, and describes effective classroom interventions that teachers can use to provide optimal educational experiences.
