Student Assistance Program

A student assistance program (SAP) consists of a set of practices implementing a systematic professional process in a school that frames an infrastructure for organizing the services existing in that school. This framework addresses barriers to learning, such as substance abuse, mental health concerns, and violence problems, through a continuum of prevention, early identification, intervention, and support services through universal, selective, and indicated strategies. The framework includes utilization of school-based resources and connections to community resources and services that assist in providing prevention services to the entire school population, addressing selective student population needs based on common risk factors, or working with indicated individual students and their families. Student assistance services are structured through the nine components of a comprehensive SAP and delivered through a ...