What Is a Comprehensive Approach to Student Supports?

Author: Center for Mental Health in Schools
Publisher: Center for Mental Health in Schools
Publication Date: 2008
Full text available online at: http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/pdfdocs/whatiscomp.pdf

Abstract (written by WestEd)

The onus on schools to raise student achievement has led many schools to expand and better coordinate their student supports. The authors of this paper contend that a paradigm shift to “comprehensive” means more than coordination and expansion of fragmented student support services; rather, it means system building within and across a continuum of intervention. Comprehensive approaches to student and learning supports should focus on the following:

1. Enhancing regular classroom strategies to enable learning
   
2. Supporting transitions
   
3. Increasing home and school connections
   
4. Responding to, and where feasible, preventing crises
   
5. Increasing community involvement and support
   
6. Facilitating student and family access to effective services and special assistance as needed

The authors provide a matrix to help school teams organize their systems for addressing barriers to student learning.