Holifield Psychological Services, Inc.
School Threat Assessment Training
Threat Assessment Community Systems Integration
Stakeholder Engagement, Planning, & Analysis
Welcome to HPS, Inc.
About Dr. Joseph Holifield, Ph.D.
Dr. Holifield has been a practicing clinician with 25 years experience providing clinical assessment and individual therapy. He previously taught psychology courses at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and has worked with several school districts as a school psychologist. His experiences led to developing an expertise in executive functioning and memory coaching. He has delivered numerous presentations, workshops, and papers on the topics of clinical assessment, developmental psychopathology, memory, executive functioning, and threat assessment. Dr. Holifield has over 20 years experience in the area of school behavioral threat assessment and is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals (ATAP). From 2019-2023, Dr. Holifield was the Grant Awardee and Project Director for the Behavioral Health Assessment Response Project (B-HARP) of San Luis Obispo County, CA. He is presently the Project Director for the School Threat Assessment Management Project (STAMP) for San Luis Obispo and Tulare Counties in CA. He recently has become a Threat Assessment Training/Coaching Consultant with John Van Dreal Consulting, LLC.
School Threat Assessment Management Project (STAMP)
Dr. Holifield authored a Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJ-A) STOP School Violence Grant through the Department of Justice. This was awarded to the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney's Office and funded through the Fall of 2025. The project involves multiple community stakeholders in San Luis Obispo and Tulare Counties in California. The project is designed to measure outcomes of threat assessment training, interagency collaboration & engagement in threat assessment/management, and build the capacity of mental health providers and agencies to respond to threats in the community.
B-HARP Project Outcomes
From 2019-2023, Dr. Holifield was the Project Director and Threat Management Coordinator for The Behavioral Health Assessment Response Project (B-HARP). The project was funded via the Innovation component of the Mental Health Services Act of California (Proposition 63). The focus was on integrating threat assessment, threat management, and threat monitoring among community institutions (education, law enforcement, and behavioral health). Significant training gains were noted for school threat assessment teams, school teachers, and mental health providers. A substantial gain was noted in stakeholder engagement and interagency collaboration in the pilot-testing of a community-based threat assessment-management system.
Threat Assessment Education for Mental Health Agencies and Providers
Threat Assessment Education for Mental Health Agencies and Providers
Threat Assessment Education for Mental Health Agencies and Providers
Developed from his research protocol, Dr. Holifield provides evidenced-based educational workshops for school and community mental health providers as well as private and community mental health organizations. Workshops cover basic threat assessment & management principles, research on behavioral warning signs, and Tarasoff reporting obligations related to potential scenarios that may occur in a therapeutic setting. The workshop's goals for treating clinicians are for them to recognize the behaviors associated with targeted violence, manage the risk in a clinical situation, and learn how to engage with school & community threat assessment teams in supporting their client.
Organizational Consultation and Community Network Integration
Threat Assessment Education for Mental Health Agencies and Providers
Threat Assessment Education for Mental Health Agencies and Providers
From the B-HARP and STAMP projects, community stakeholder engagement and interagency collaboration are crucial components in crafting, implementing, and maintaining a community threat assessment & management system. Using an research-based approach, Dr. Holifield can work with your organization, school district, or community stakeholders in developing goals, activities, metrics, and analysis to attain practical outcomes in developing and integrating threat assessment and management networks.
Salem-Keizer Cascade School Threat Assessment System Coaching
Threat Assessment Education for Mental Health Agencies and Providers
Salem-Keizer Cascade School Threat Assessment System Coaching
Dr. Holifield recently became an Associate of John Van Dreal Consulting, LLC., a security consulting practice dedicated to assisting school districts and other organizations improve psychological safety and peace of mind by building effective systems for violence prevention, mitigation, and response. Using leading threat assessment models such as the Salem-Keizer Cascade System as a template, each project focuses on user-friendly applications that are tailored to the unique needs of the client and its culture, community, and budget.