Guest guest Posted February 1, 2007 Report Share Posted February 1, 2007 http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19188<http://www.humanevents.com/>Mental Health Screening: New Liberal Tool for Child-Controlby Phyllis SchlaflyJan 30, 2007Mental health screening of all children is the goal of legislationintroduced into many state legislatures this year. Typical of thesehighly controversial bills is the Missouri bill that would require everyMissouri school district, in collaboration with "the office ofcomprehensive child mental health," to develop "a policy ofincorporating social and emotional development into the district'seducational program."The Missouri bill requires schools to "address teaching and assessingsocial and emotional skills and protocols for responding to childrenwith social, emotional or mental health problems." The bill alsorequires the Missouri state board of education to set "social andemotional development standards."One marvels at the arrogance of government officials who think they canset children's social and emotional standards. Where on the chart wouldthey place a child crying because he fell and skinned his knee?Cortland County, New York, has already announced a plan to annuallyscreen every fifth-grader and ninth-grader for mental health problems.The purpose, according to the county director of youth services, is "toraise awareness that mental health issues are in essence no differentthan other physical issues, such as heart disease." Apparently, you arenot "aware" if you think otherwise.The screening process, which takes 15 minutes, involves getting the kidsto answer a series of yes-or-no questions, on either computer or paper.It is claimed that parental permission will be necessary, but allchildren of any age in foster care will automatically be screened.Mental health screening is based on the assumption that ten percent ofchildren suffer from a mental disorder severe enough to causeimpairment, and that five percent of children have emotional or behaviordifficulties that interfere with learning, friendships and family life.Cortland County plans to refer the ten percent to the county mentalhealth clinic or other providers for further evaluation, and it is wellknown that referrals often result in orders for drug therapy. The clinicwill be rewarded with $50 of taxpayers' money for every child sent tothe clinic.Parents are starting to wake up to this invasion of their authority overthe care and upbringing of their own children. A bill that wouldprohibit school personnel from making mental health recommendations orrequirements for children, including the use of psychotropicmedications, just passed out of a committee of the Utah legislature.This bill would also prohibit schools from requiring a student to takepsychiatric medication in order to attend school and prohibit the statefrom removing a child from parental custody based on a parent's refusalto consent to the administration of psychotropic medication.A bill introduced into the Connecticut legislature is more specific. Itwould require that all parents who are requested by the school to havetheir child evaluated be first provided with a statement that thegovernment does not recommend any particular checklist, assessment orevaluation for psychiatric or psychological disorders, plus a copy ofthe Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (the federal law that requiresprior written parental consent before schools can require students tosubmit to psychological or psychiatric testing or treatment).Last year, Alaska enacted a law forbidding schools from conductingpsychiatric or behavioral health evaluations and from requiring that achild take a psychotropic drug as a condition for attending a publicschool. Also last year, Arizona passed a law requiring that schoolsobtain written parental consent before conducting any mental healthscreening on any pupil and must make the actual survey questionsavailable for inspection by parents.Someone should notify state legislators and school districts that arecontemplating mental health screening requirements that the AmericanPsychological Association recently urged that "in most cases" ofchildhood mental disorders, non-drug treatment should "be consideredfirst." This should include techniques that focus on parenting skills aswell as help from teachers.Even the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, anorganization whose members strongly favor drug treatment, just completednew guidelines recommending that children receive talk therapy beforebeing given drugs for the common complaint of moderate depression.Parents should take on the responsibility of being parents, and theyshould beware of the psychotropic drugs that have unfortunate or eventragic side effects. Parents should help to pass pro-parent legislationbefore those who think the "village" should raise all children usemental health screening to label their child as nuts.Mrs. Schlafly is the author of the new book The Supremacists: TheTyranny of Judges and How to Stop It (Spence Publishing Co)._____Petition: Stop TeenScreen's Unscientific and Experimental "Mental HealthScreening" of American School Children<http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html>http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html++ Doc Shillington727-447-5282Doc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 5, 2007 Report Share Posted February 5, 2007 Yes! Welcome to the Brave New World. We are currently going through the exact same phase Nazi Germany went through about 6 months before WW2 started. Very scary. And a special acknowledgment and validation for those of you Mom's who ARE home schooling. You ARE the smart ones!!!!!!!!!!!! Yours in Knowledge, Health, Freedom and Love, Doc Doc Shillington727-447-5282Doc - Dr. Ian Shillington Friday, February 02, 2007 4:56 PM Re: More on Teen Screen I've been hearing about this for months.Thank the Gods for homescholing!The next planned step is manditory mental health screening for pregnant women to determine whether they are capable of being good, stable, parents. (read mindless sheep who do whatever the government tells them to with their kids) If a pregnant woman is determined "unacceptable, the choices are few: manditory abortion and sterilization, or allowing the birth to occur only to send the child to foster care, and a life as a ward of the state (read brainwashed into being the "perfect citizen".)It is all so horribly Orwellian.-K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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