School-Linked
Integrated Services
Integrated services is the coordinated delivery of health, education, prevention, and social services designed to improve the quality of life for individuals and families. These services can include mental health services, counseling, substance-abuse programs, teen pregnancy programs, dropout prevention, health care, dental care, child-abuse programs, gang-diversion programs, conflict resolution programs, literacy training, job training, tutoring and remedial education, mentoring, after- and before-school care, parenting education, and programs for homeless youth.
Integrated services are school-linked when these services are available at a school or a nearby site in partnership with a school. The school itself serves as the link between the service delivery system and families. The Center for the Future of Children (1992) states:
"In a school-linked approach to integrating services for children, (a) services are provided to children and their families through a collaboration among schools, health care providers, and social services agencies; (b) the schools are among the central participants in planning and governing the collaborative effort; and (c) the services are provided at, or are coordinated by personnel located at, the school or a site near the school. Most often, the school-linked approach requires agencies that typically provide health and social services off the school site to move some of their staff and/or services to the school. Although school personnel are actively involved in identifying children who need services, they are not typically the actual providers of the services." (p. 7)
Farrow and Joe (1992) describe five characteristics of effective school-linked services:
For more information, refer to the following sources:
