Addressing Barriers to Learning - ERIC

1 Addressing Barriers New ways to think .. to Learning Better ways to link Volume 12, Number 4 Fall, 2007 Mental Health in Schools:Much More than Services for a Few It s wonderful to be able to provide individual andsmall group counseling/therapy for those childrenand adolescents who need it. It s tragic that notenough of these clinical services are equitablyavailable. It s fortunate that schools have been ableto provide such services at least for a few studentsvia school personnel and/or co-located and linkedcommunity service providers. It is clear, however, that the number of studentsexperiencing behavior, Learning , and emotionalproblems far outstrips the possibility of providingmore than a small percentage with clinical services even if this were the best way to address the widerange of all this, leaders concerned with advancingmental health in school need to focus on much morethan just increasing clinical services.

2 That, of course,has long been the message conveyed by advocatesfor prevention programs. It is also the messageconveyed by those who stress that concerns aboutmental health involve much more than the focus onmental illness. This latter view includes an emphasison promoting youth development, wellness, socialand emotional Learning , and fostering the emergenceof a caring, supportive, and nurturing climatethroughout a school. Inside Page Center News & Resources 6 Do You Know About? 7 NIIAH What Works Clearinghouse Not Waiting for Failure 8 Many Schools, Many Students:Equity in Addressing Barriers 11In the abstract, most stakeholders support allefforts to advance the mental health field. Whenit comes to policy, however, competition arisesrelated to priorities.

3 Advocates for those withserious and chronic personal problems know thereare not enough available and accessible services,especially for low income families. So, theymainly support expansion of specialized clinicalservices and tend to view other mental healthagenda items ( , prevention) as competition forsparse poignant irony in all this is that advocacy forspecialized clinical services has contributed notonly to identifying more students who havediagnosable problems, but also to formallyassigning diagnostic labels to many commonplacebehavior, Learning , and emotional problems. Inthe last decade the number of youngstersdiagnosed as ADHD, LD, and clinically depressedhas escalated exponentially. As a result, studentswhose problems can and should be addressedthrough other means are consuming resourcesneeded for those with severe and chronicproblems.

4 And, the demand for clinical servicescontinues to outstrip supply in alarming along this path is untenable. Needed: Widespread Acknowledgment of the Zero Sum GameA zero sum game is a situation or interaction inwhich one participant's gains result only fromanother's equivalent losses. In trying to make theworld a better place for children and adolescents,many advocates feel they must focus strategicallyand laser-like on one concern because resourcesare sparse and distributed politically. Thus, theyenter into a zero sum game.(cont. on page 2)2 The continuing tendency of many advocates formental health in schools is to compete in this wayeven though it pits the needs and interests of someyoungsters against the needs and interests of , too often, it generates counterproductiverelationships among school staff and between schooland community professionals, with the situationsometimes exacerbated by narrow pursuit of specificprofessional guild interests.

5 It is inevitable that some advocates will fight forspecific groups of children and adolescents. Givencurrent policy inequities, however, they can hopeonly for small zero sum successes. With respect tomental health in schools, usually this meansimmediate clinical help for a few more students, butat a cost for others that seldom is articulated. The mission of schools calls for ensuring that allstudents have an equal opportunity to succeed atschool and beyond. Therefore, advocacy for mentalhealth in schools must address the needs andinterests of all students. And, given that these needsand interests depend largely on the way school stafffunction, advocacy for mental health in schools mustencompass a focus on staff as well as : A New Advocacy Coalition for the Few AND the Many Anyone who has done a substantive analysis of whatschools do to address psychosocial and mental healthconcerns can articulate a host of data are available to make the case thatsomething needs to be done to improve matters.

6 Inan age of data driven decision making, one wouldhope that school improvement planning wouldsignificantly redress the deficiencies. However, asGoodwin and Dean (2007) have sagely noted withrespect to data driven decision making: data are nomore instructive than tea leaves. Schools must digbelow the surface to get at the real issues and addressthem head on rather than serving up a cocktail ofsymptom treating medications. Data are one thing;interpretation of data is quite another. Those who view mental health in schools through thelens of providing as many specialized clinicalservices as possible point to the number who are notserved and then advocate for more services. Adifferent agenda surfaces when the situation isviewed by those concerned mainly with classroommanagement and school discipline , still other agenda arise when the concern isabout promoting youth development, wellness, socialand emotional Learning , and fostering the emergenceof a caring, supportive, and nurturing climatethroughout a school.

7 The different perspectives have led to advocacyfor a variety of initiatives, such as PositiveBehavior Support, Coordinated School Health,Safe Schools/Healthy Students, Response toIntervention, Early Intervening, social andemotional Learning , character education, projectsto ameliorate bullying, violence, substance abuse,pregnancy, dropouts, efforts to enhance schoolconnectedness and student re-engagement, andmany more. Each initiative focuses on a majorconcern; each has a political constituency and asilo of economic support; each has established aniche. And, each has contributed to the piecemeal,ad hoc, and often simplistic approaches thatcharacterize efforts to address it Together to Transform Student and Learning Supports Given that many problems experienced bystudents arise from the same underlying causes, itmakes sense not to consider each , various policy and practice analysesindicate that it is unwise to do so.

8 The complexityof factors interfering with Learning and teachingunderscore the need to coalesce efforts to addressthe variety of factors that interfere with a schoolaccomplishing its mission. And, the coalescedefforts must be embedded into the larger agendafor school improvement. To these ends, we have suggested that fourfundamental concerns must be brought to schoolimprovement planning tables. These concernsstress the need to: (1) Expand policy broadening policy for school improvement to fully integrate, asprimary and essential, a comprehensive,multifaceted, and cohesive system foraddressing Barriers to Learning andteaching, with school safety embeddedin natural and authentic ways, (2) Reframe interventions in-classrooms and school-wide unifying the fragmentedinterventions used to address Barriers tolearning and teaching and promotehealthy development under a frameworkthat can guide development of acomprehensive system at every school, (3)

9 Reconceive infrastructure reworking the operational and organizationalinfrastructure for a school, a family ofschools, the district, and for school-family-community collaboration with aview to weaving resources together todevelop a comprehensive system,3(4) Rethink the implementation problem framing the phases and tasks involved in"getting from here to there" in terms ofwidespread diffusion of innovations inorganized settings that have well-establishedinstitutional cultures and systems. We have discussed each of these in detail invarious publications and reports (some referencesare cited on page 5). Exhibits 1 and 2 are includedhere as a way of underscoring the type ofcohesive and unifying policy and interventionframeworks that are needed.

10 (text cont. on p. 5)Exhibit 1A Proposed Policy Framework: Establishing a School Improvement Policy Umbrella for Addressing Barriers to Learning and Promoting Healthy DevelopmentThe figure below illustrates the notion that, from a policy perspective, all student/learningsupports can be coalesced under a rubric such as Addressing Barriers to student Learning . Theresulting component is defined as a comprehensive system of Learning supports designed toenable Learning by Addressing Barriers . Once unified, the whole enterprise is in a betterposition to be recognized as a primary and essential component of an expanded policy forschool improvement. Direct Facilitation of Learning Addressing Barriers to Learning & Teaching (Instructional Component) (Enabling or Learning Supports Component an umbrella for ending marginalization by unifying themany fragmented efforts and evolving acomprehensive approach)