Education and Mental Health System Reforms and Barriers to Learning

Lean, D., & Colucci, V. (2010). Education and Mental Health System Reforms and Barriers to Learning. In Barriers To Learning: The Case for Integrated Mental Health Services in Schools (pp. 39-50). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

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The authors make a case for integrated mental health services in schools to eliminate some of the barriers to student learning and achievement. This chapter discusses how there is a great increase of the mental health needs of children and adolescents. Most education reforms propose approaches to closing the achievement gap through improvements in school leadership and pedagogy, and when education reform does acknowledge the need for mental health programs in schools, the policies fail to mention the needs for those interventions to be carried out in the schools.

Research has shown the advantages of having school-based student support services provided by mental health professionals for children as opposed to teachers. Most children’s mental health reform includes the promotion of services as part of the curriculum and relies on teachers to identify potential mental health problems in individual students. This approach places disproportionate responsibility on educators in addition to their instructional roles.