About

Robert Scholz, MA, is a licensed psychotherapist in California and Arizona, as well as a consultant and trainer throughout the United States. He has served in many clinical and leadership roles over the past 25 years, working in university, community mental health, forensic and private practice settings. Robert is well-known for his work as a trainer and consultant in assisting schools/universities and communities respond to major crisis events like wildfires, mass shootings, deaths of students/employees and responding to sexual and other types of interpersonal violence. Trained in group and individual critical incident debriefing, Robert is often invited into communities after acts of violence and other traumatic events to help leaders and community members process and cope with extraordinarily difficult events. He served as the clinical supervisor for the Route 91 So Cal Heals project, which provides case management, peer support and support group care for survivors and family members impacted by the Las Vegas and Borderline Nightclub mass shootings.

Robert's engaging, evidence-based and entertaining presentation style translates well when he presents to professionals in education, mental health, criminal justice and corporate settings, but also makes him very accessible when speaking with groups of with parents, teens and young adults. As a corporate consultant and trainer, Robert collaborates with human resource directors to help problem-solve challenging employee situations and develop company-wide interventions to assist with change initiatives. Certified and trained additionally as an executive coach, Robert provides leadership training and executive coaching to mid to high level management team members of universities, mental health corporations and other workplaces. With extensive training and experience in the fields of risk and threat assessment, Robert has also served as an advisor to school, university and workplace threat assessment teams. Robert has an extensive history in higher education settings, serving as an administrator in offices of housing and residential life, director of disability services, assistant director of counseling and outreach, and coordinator of alcohol and drug programs. In his time at Pepperdine University, he also helped to develop their campus-wide sexual assault prevention initiatives, as well as co-create, with athletic dept. staff, their student care team for student-athletes.

Robert has extensive experience training staff, faculty, and student staff on the topics of suicide prevention/ intervention, bystander intervention, trauma-informed care, managing challenging conversations and de-escalating crises. Robert has served as an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at Pepperdine’s Graduate School of Education and Psychology for over 20 years, teaching courses on substance abuse treatment and forensic psychology.

Robert has served as an advisory board member for several organizations, including most recently the National Association for Behavioral Intervention and Threat Assessment (NABITA). A respected writer, Robert co-authored the book Engaging Resistance, a best-seller in the forensic psychology field, and has authored several other publications on the topics of suicide assessment, men’s mental health, treating mandated clients, addiction and best practices in disaster mental health. Robert is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) and regularly provides motivational interviewing training and consultation for a variety of criminal justice, education and mental health/ addiction treatment groups.