Student support services help address barriers to learning like hunger, violence, and lack of health care. They engage families and communities to keep students healthy and support their academic success. Components include counseling, prevention programs, psychological services, social work, health services, and crisis response to help students develop skills for smart choices and positive behaviors. Research shows these services are associated with improved attendance, graduation rates, and academic performance.

1. +
Making the Connection:
Student Support Services and
Student Achievement

2. +
Student Support Services
“[Children].. Who face violence, hunger,
substance abuse, unintended
pregnancy, and despair cannot possibly
focus on academic excellence. There is
no curriculum brilliant enough to
compensate for a hungry stomach or a
distracted mind.”
American Cancer Society
National Action Plan for Comprehension
School Health Education, 1992

3. +
Student Support Services:
A Solution
 Engage
parents, teachers, students, families, and
communities
 Help keep students healthy
 Support learning and success in school
 Reinforce positive behaviors
 Help
students develop knowledge and skills to make
smart choices

4. +
Components of Student Support Services
Counseling
Services
Comprehensive School
Student Support Health
Services
Services
Crisis
Psychological
Response Services
Service
Healthy
Prevention
School
Services
Climate
School
Social Work
Services

5. +
Good Health
is Necessary
for Academic
Success
School Health Services

6. +
Former Surgeon General
Dr. Antonia Novello
“ Health and education go hand in hand: one
cannot exist without the other. To believe any
differently is to hamper progress. Just as our
children have a right to receive the best education
available, they have a right to be healthy. As
parents, legislators, and educators, it is up to us
to see that this becomes a reality.”
Healthy Children Ready to Learn: An Essential
Collaboration Between
Health and Education, 1992

7. +
School Health Services
What is Health Services?
 Includes
preventive services, education,
emergency care, referral and management of
acute and chronic health conditions
 Designed to promote the health of students,
identify and prevent health problems and
injuries, and ensure care for students.
Health is Academic, 1998

8. +
School Health Services:
Facts
Schools with school-based health centers
report:
 Increased school attendance
 Decreased drop-outs and suspensions
 Higher graduation rates
McCord, Klein, Foy, and Fothergill, 1993
Walters, 1996

9. +
School Health Services
 Earlychildhood and school aged intervention
programs that provide parental support and
health services are associated with improved
school performance and academic achievement
 Early
intervention may also improve high school
completion rates and lower juvenile crime
Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, and Mann, 2001

10. + Helping children
and youth succeed
academically,
socially,
behaviorally, and
emotionally.
Psychological Services

11. +
Psychological Services
School Psychologist
 Link
mental health to learning and behavior to
promote:
 High academic achievement
 Positive social skills and behavior
 Healthy relationships and connectedness
 Tolerance and respect for others
 Competence, self-esteem, and resiliency

12. +
Psychological Services
Why children need School Psychologists?
 Learning difficulties  Depression and other
mental health issues
 Behavior concerns
 Attention problems
 Fears about
war, violence, terrorism  Poverty
 Problems at home or  Diverse populations
with peers with diverse needs

13. +
Psychological Services
What Do School Psychologists Do?
 Assessment
 Consultation
 Prevention
 Intervention
 Education
 Research and program
development
 Mental health care
 Advocacy

14. +
Prevention
reaches
more than
the tip of the
iceberg
Prevention Services

15. +
Prevention Services
What is Prevention Services?
 Forsyth County Schools Prevention Services takes various
prevention steps:
 School based mentoring program
 Implements Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
 Conducts Youth Empowerment programs at the school level
 Each middle school uses the Too Good For Drugs curriculum

16. +
Prevention Services
What is a Mentor?
 A mentor is a volunteer who works to provide a young person
with a special, encouraging relationship that will hopefully
become a foundation for success in a child’s life.
 Through this relationship, a mentor attempts to foster the child’s
self-worth, motivation, coping skills, and strength of character.

17. +
Recognition of the Olweus Bullying
Prevention Program
 One of 11 Blueprints for Violence Prevention (Center
for the Study & Prevention of Violence)
 An Exemplary Program (SAMHSA)
 Model Safe and Drug Free Schools Program

18. +
Goals of the Olweus Bullying Prevention
Program
 Reduce existing bully/victim problems among
school children
 Prevent
the development of new bully/victim
problems Classroom
School
 Improve peer relations
Parent
 Improve school climate s
Community
Individual

19. +
Olweus Bullying Prevention Program:
Facts
99% of school shooters said they had been
bullied
 160,000
students nationwide miss school daily
because of bullying
6 out of 10 teenagers say they witness bullying once
a day
 Stressesof “Victimization” can interfere with
students engagement and learning in school

20. + One person can
make a difference,
and everyone
should try.
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
School Social Work
Services

21. +
School Social Work Services
What does a SSW do?
 Works with schools, students and families to
eliminate barriers to successful learning
 Acts
as a liaison/link between the school, the
home and the community
 Works with the identified “At-Risk” students

22. +
School Social Work Services:
SSW Activities
 Provide direct Crisis Intervention Services to schools
 Develop and identify resources for students and
families
 Assist families in crisis or those with emergency
needs
 Advocateon behalf of children and families with
agencies and community resources
 Represent the school system in community
organizations

23. +
School Social Work Services
Summary
 SSWs are in the schools everyday, working directly with
students, teachers, counselors and administrators to improve
student learning and to help make needed contact with a
variety of resources

24. +
School Social Work Services
 Students who develop a positive affiliation or social bonding
with school are:
 More likely to remain academically engaged
 Less likely to be involved with misconduct at school
Simons-Morton, Crump, Haynie, and Saylor, 1999

25. + The greatest good
you can do for
another is not just
share your riches,
but reveal to them
their own.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Counseling Services

26. +
FCS Counseling Services:
Mission
 The mission of the Forsyth County School Counseling Program
is to promote educational performance, providing all students
with the opportunities to acquire the academic, career,
personal, and social competencies necessary to achieve
quality learning and life-long success.

27. +
Counseling Services
What do school Counselors do?
 Work with students in classroom settings, small groups and
individually
 Guide students to develop competencies in:
 Academic Achievement
 Personal and social development
 Career Planning
 Collaborate with:
 Students
 Parents
 School staff
 Community Members

28. +
Counseling Services:
Parent Involvement
 Students whose parents are involved in their education show:
 Significantly greater achievement gains in reading and math than
students with uninvolved parents
 Better attendance
 More consistently completed homework
vital hopeful
critical
believe necessary
crucial wanted needed
optional important

29. +
Counseling Services:
Successful Students
 It is difficult for students to be successful in school if they are:
 Depressed
 Tired
 Being Bullied
 Stressed
 Sick
 Using alcohol or other drugs
 Hungry
 Abused

30. +
Healthy children
make better
students, and
better students
make healthy
communities