Posted on 02/14/2007 7:40:29 PM PST by A. Pole
Mental health screening of all children is the goal of legislation introduced into many state legislatures this year. Typical of these highly controversial bills is the Missouri bill that would require every Missouri school district, in collaboration with "the office of comprehensive child mental health," to develop "a policy of incorporating social and emotional development into the district's educational program." The Missouri bill requires schools to "address teaching and assessing social and emotional skills and protocols for responding to children with social, emotional or mental health problems." The bill also requires the Missouri state board of education to set "social and emotional development standards." One marvels at the arrogance of government officials who think they can set children's social and emotional standards. Where on the chart would they place a child crying because he fell and skinned his knee? Cortland County, New York, has already announced a plan to annually screen every fifth-grader and ninth-grader for mental health problems. The purpose, according to the county director of youth services, is "to raise awareness that mental health issues are in essence no different than other physical issues, such as heart disease." Apparently, you are not "aware" if you think otherwise. The screening process, which takes 15 minutes, involves getting the kids to answer a series of yes-or-no questions, on either computer or paper. It is claimed that parental permission will be necessary, but all children of any age in foster care will automatically be screened. Mental health screening is based on the assumption that ten percent of children suffer from a mental disorder severe enough to cause impairment, and that five percent of children have emotional or behavior difficulties that interfere with learning, friendships and family life. Cortland County plans to refer the ten percent to the county mental health clinic or other providers for further evaluation, and it is well known that referrals often result in orders for drug therapy. The clinic will be rewarded with $50 of taxpayers' money for every child sent to the clinic. Parents are starting to wake up to this invasion of their authority over the care and upbringing of their own children. A bill that would prohibit school personnel from making mental health recommendations or requirements for children, including the use of psychotropic medications, just passed out of a committee of the Utah legislature. This bill would also prohibit schools from requiring a student to take psychiatric medication in order to attend school and prohibit the state from removing a child from parental custody based on a parent's refusal to consent to the administration of psychotropic medication. A bill introduced into the Connecticut legislature is more specific. It would require that all parents who are requested by the school to have their child evaluated be first provided with a statement that the government does not recommend any particular checklist, assessment or evaluation for psychiatric or psychological disorders, plus a copy of the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (the federal law that requires prior written parental consent before schools can require students to submit to psychological or psychiatric testing or treatment). Last year, Alaska enacted a law forbidding schools from conducting psychiatric or behavioral health evaluations and from requiring that a child take a psychotropic drug as a condition for attending a public school. Also last year, Arizona passed a law requiring that schools obtain written parental consent before conducting any mental health screening on any pupil and must make the actual survey questions available for inspection by parents. Someone should notify state legislators and school districts that are contemplating mental health screening requirements that the American Psychological Association recently urged that "in most cases" of childhood mental disorders, non-drug treatment should "be considered first." This should include techniques that focus on parenting skills as well as help from teachers. Even the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, an organization whose members strongly favor drug treatment, just completed new guidelines recommending that children receive talk therapy before being given drugs for the common complaint of moderate depression. Parents should take on the responsibility of being parents, and they should beware of the psychotropic drugs that have unfortunate or even tragic side effects. Parents should help to pass pro-parent legislation before those who think the "village" should raise all children use mental health screening to label their child as nuts.
Yet another attack on normal childhood behavior
bttt
Procedures are billable. Billable is good. Mental health and psychiatry do not have many proceedures.
>> Cortland County, New York, has already announced a plan to annually screen every fifth-grader and ninth-grader for mental health problems. The purpose, according to the county director of youth services, is "to raise awareness that mental health issues are in essence no different than other physical issues, such as heart disease." Apparently, you are not "aware" if you think otherwise.<<
How on earth does the government think it got this power? - damned if I see any power to mandate psychological examination of children in the constitution.
So they get the state money?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1574836/posts
The UN Plan for Your Mental Health (UNESCO)
We just had a tragic case here in Massachusetts where a 4 year old died of an overdose of prescription drugs.
She was started on anti-depressents and meds for bi-polar disease at 2 1/2.
I was horrified !
In other words, they just want to measure how well they're doing at brainwashing our kids.
States and insurence companies all pay by procedure.
The only difference is that the state decides what it wants to pay you after the fact and the insurence companies pay a precontracted rate that they determine.
The formula is simple, it's application is not. Add lots of love, then apply demanding and sometimes unpleasant pressure where necessary. Works damned near every time.
The last I knew, an intake first appointment with a psychiatrist cost $250.00. I would never want my child's future affected by a quick $50 visit by a less qualified person who could have great impact on his/her life.
There are schools that get MORE FUNDING based upon the number of children taking medication for "MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES!" THis is sheer CRAP, and the state legislatures that promote this need to bwe told "NO!"!
I dare say well over 75% or more of the children placed on these medications do not need them...but they DO need teachers that allow kids to be kids and not sit like little robots in a classroom
(end of rant)
Oh, Brother!!!!!!
I am reminded of the sudden explosion of ADD diagnosed children that interestingly occurred shortly after the welfare reform act during the Klinton administration. ADD = social security disability $$$$$
I noted at the same time (I was a cop) that most of our homeless alcoholics suddenly developed back and nerve disorders when their alcoholic disability was abolished.
This drive to diagnose everyone with something is obscene.
When homeschooled kids fail to have the proper view of gays, transsexual, transgendered, and transspecies, will they be viewed as mentally ill, requiring state sponsored mental health care?
3rd grade psych test:
1-Do you have friends?
2-Do you like animals?
3-Do you have friends with 2 daddies?
4-Do you regularly sleepover at this friends house?
5-If you like animals, would you like a special friendship with animals?
6-What do your parents say about the daddies of your friend with 2 daddies?
7-Do your friends daddies love you more than your parents?
8-Do they hug you more than your parents?
9-Do they touch you lovingly more than your parents?
10-Do you love your friends 2 daddies?
For folks outside of Massachusetts who haven't heard of the case:
"[The doctor] had also prescribed nearly identical drugs for similar disorders for her two siblings, a sister who is now 6 and a brother now 11..."
"The Rileys administered higher doses of the prescription drugs when Rebecca acted up or when they wanted her to sleep..."
"Carolyn Riley [mother] told investigators she was taking Paxil to deal with depression and anxiety, and Michael Riley admitted he often became verbally abusive with his children and once, a number of years ago, struck his wife. He blamed his temper on bipolar disorder and "intermittent rage disorder," conditions for which he said he took no medication,..."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/02/07/girl_fed_fatal_overdoses_court_told/
The former Soviet Union did a lot of stuff like this. There is so much potential for abuse here. What will be considered normal mental health?? What questions will be asked in the evaluation?? How easy will it be to get a diagnosis? And then keep it for life?? This is not about mental health. Things are never really about what they seem. It is once again an attempt to indoctrinate and punish! How??? Will a child that does not believe in homosexuality be considered to have a personality disorder?? Will medications and therapy be mandated until the right view is expressed?? Will these evaluations be with, or without parental approval?? Will it become a thing of privacy as abortion is?? A child may get an evaluation, receive a diagnosis and be medicated all without parental approval or knowledge! In the former Soviet Union, you were diagnosed with a mental illness if you were caught criticizing the state. This thing is evil. there is no other name for it!
As the mental defecatives are adjudged to be incompetent, so they have to be tested for it. OTOH, there are future benefits, such as exemption from jury duty, insanity defense, etc.
It goes in the child's record and can be used to influence all of his teachers eventhough they are not qualified to evaluate the info.
I will be so glad when psychiatrists slither off inot the sunset for good!
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