A key concern for educators, administrators, professional support services personnel, parents and policy makers are barriers to learning, particularly student mental health. Statistics reveal that up to 20 percent of children and youth have mental health issues and up to 80 percent do not receive proper intervention.
Barriers to Learning enables readers to gain valuable insight into the challenges presented in classrooms today. This book presents a unique classification and review of various mental health and learning issues. The authors link current education and child and youth mental health reforms to make the case for improving services to address barriers to learning.
This book includes a unique School-based Integrated Student Support Model (SISSM), which, within the context of exceptional school leadership and instruction, provides a framework for timely and evidence-based integrated and collaborative services to reduce, manage, and prevent barriers to learning for all students.

Debra S. Lean has more than twenty years of experience in children's mental health and school psychology. She is the chief psychologist at the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board and is a member of several government-supported child and youth mental health initiatives.

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 Prologue: ABC District School Board
Chapter 4 Barriers to Learning
Chapter 5 Biological-Psychological Barriers to Learning
Chapter 6 Environmental-Circumstantial Based Barriers to Learning
Chapter 7 Negative Outcomes of Inadequate Intervention for Barriers to Learning
Chapter 8 Education and Mental Health System Reforms and Barriers to Learning
Chapter 9 School System Responses to Barriers to Learning
Chapter 10 Reduction, Management and Prevention of Barriers to Learning: The School-based Integrated Support Services Model (SISSM)
Chapter 11 Epilogue: ABC District School Board Revisited
Chapter 12 Conclusion