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Student Assistance Professionals (SAP)

What is SAP?

The Pennsylvania Student Assistance Program is a unique collaboration between schools, community agencies, county human services, and the Pennsylvania State Departments of Human Services, Drug and Alcohol Programs and Education. The Network for SAP Services provides leadership, communication and monies to support SAP at the county and local school level.

At the local school level, a highly trained, multidisciplinary school team works with the staff to identify students’ barriers to learning and school success. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs
  • Mental health
  • Family and academic stressors which pose learning barriers

The SAP team identifies students, determines whether their problem lies within the responsibility of the school to address and makes recommendations to assist students and families remove barriers to learning. When a problem lies beyond the scope of the school, the SAP team, including the community agency liaison, will assist the parent and student to identify appropriate services within the community and school to address the issues and work toward improvement.

Who are We?

The Prevention Team of Addiction Medicine Services-UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, a Pennsylvania Approved SAP Training Provider, has trained educators and behavioral health professionals for over 30 years.

Our professional educators, clinicians, and behavior specialists deliver high-quality initial SAP and advanced training and ongoing coaching designed to help teams function efficiently and effectively. Our goal is to help schools build sustainable systems for addressing student learning barriers in the best way possible.

We currently offer the following workshops for school personnel: teachers, nurses, school liaisons, administrators, clinical staff, school resource officers, and probation officers. Learn more about each course below:



If you have questions about any of our training courses, please call 412-235-5377.