Our U.S. Government at Work
U.S. House of Representatives bill H.R. 751, the Mental Health in Schools Act of 2011, was sponsored in Congress 2/17/2011 by Rep. Grace Napolitano (California, D-38) and acquired 52 co-sponsors.
The stated purpose of this bill is “To amend the Public Health Service Act to revise and extend projects relating to children and violence to provide access to school-based comprehensive mental health programs.”
Representatives Russ Carnahan (D-3) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-5) of Missouri are co-sponsors. The bill is currently in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Health.
To read the bill for yourself, go to the Library of Congress (http://thomas.loc.gov) and search for “H.R. 751”.
The bill summary says, “Amends the Public Health Service Act to revise a community children and violence program to assist local communities and schools in applying a public health approach to mental health services, including by: (1) revising eligibility requirements for a grant, contract, or cooperative agreement; and (2) providing for comprehensive school mental health programs that are culturally and linguistically appropriate and age appropriate. Makes only a partnership between a local educational agency and at least one community program or agency that is involved in mental health eligible for such funding.”
The rationale for this outrageous bill comes from fraudulent statistics provided by the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The bill says that approximately 1 in 5 children have a diagnosable mental disorder, and approximately 1 in 10 children have a serious emotional or behavioral disorder, thus requiring intervention by every school “to respond to the mental health needs of its students.”
While this bill is abhorrent in itself, the real target is not just defeating such blatant trolling for patients by the psychopharmaceutical industry, but should be removing all mental health funding from the educational system, and returning the care of children’s mental health to their families, religious institutions, and legitimate health and medical professionals.
Find your U.S. Representatives and their contact information at http://www.house.gov/representatives/. Let them know what you think.
For more information, read our blog posts on these subjects:
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2012/01/02/federal-funds-for-learning-disorders/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2011/08/17/the-parental-consent-act/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2011/08/13/dc-0-to-3/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2011/03/20/you-paid-for-it-missouri/