(From the UCLA School Mental Health Center) One of the themes being developed in our discussions is how to integrate health and social programs within education systems. A recent report from the US-based Child Trends organization has described how an integrated set of student services is how the health, social services, mental health and other sectors can and should contribute to student success. If these various services can cooperate and deliver such support in a concerted manner, it would assure educators of their ongoing commitment to working with and within schools. A summary of the Child Trend report and the full research review are available from Child trends. These documents define ISS “representing an emerging field of practice that aims to address persistent disparities in educational achievement and attainment. ISS is a school-based approach to promoting students’ academic achievement and educational attainment by coordinating a seamless system of wraparound supports for the child, the family, and schools, to target student’s academic and non-academic barriers to learning." That report focuses on nine programs:Beacon Initiative, Children’s Aid Society Community Schools, City Connects, Comer School Development Program, Communities In Schools, CoZi Initiative, Say Yes to Education, School of the 21st Century and University‑Assisted Community Schools.. However, the UCLA Center on School Mental Health, a long-time advocate for comprehensive approaches to removing barriers to learning, strongly suggests that integrated student supports (ISS) alone "do not effectively address the fundamental policy and practice concerns about the consequences of pursuing the limited approach that the concept of integrated student supports engenders with respect to enhancing equity of opportunity for students to succeed at school and beyond". The UCLA analysis suggests that "the Child Trends report "doesn’t consider the implications of the fact that in most schools student support is primarily provided by school and district-based student support personnel (e.g., school psychologists, school counselors, school social workers, school nurses, school dropout/graduation support, special educators, and many more school personnel who play a role in prevention, early intervention, and treatment of students with severe and chronic problems. The UCLA "emphasis continues to be on moving toward policy and practice for addressing a wide range barriers to student development and learning and to teachers teaching. Making this a reality involves much more than integrating already over-committed community services into schools. It requires transforming the role schools play and weaving together the broadest range of school and community resources for enhancing student and learning supports. In other words, the support services that must be provided by other agencies, which are vital as a long term commitment from those sectors, must be fully integrated within the goals and priorities of the school systems. Further, school systems must be committed to ensuring that all children are well-served by their schooling.

(An item from ISHN Member information service) Several articles in Issue #3, 2012 of Children & Schools call for and then start to develop a comprehensive model of school-based and school-linked social work. The editorial provides a rationale for the creation of a national school social work model, followed by an initial conceptualization of a model and recent and future steps to refine the model using an iterative process. Anogther of the articles replicates the efforts of a mixed-method investigation designed to identify barriers and facilitators to school social work practice within different geographic locations. Time constraints and caseloads were found to be the most commonly cited barriers to practice, and respondents from urban locations reported the highest number of barriers when compared with those from suburban and rural settings. As a single category, school staff collaboration, communication, cooperation, and attitudes was cited as the most common facilitator and the highest ranked facilitator of practice. A third article provides an argument for and implications of school social workers as uniquely qualified to develop, lead, and facilitate interdisciplinary, community–university collaboration to increase meaningful family involvement and support children's success in schools through school-linked services. Read more.