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CWA of Illinois Shocked By Lawmaker’s
Plan To Mandate Testing of School Children’s Mental Health
7/26/2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 24, 2004 FOR MORE INFORMATION: CWA of Illinois (708) 371-7810
Palos Heights, IL –Overwhelmingly
supported by Illinois lawmakers, a plan to evaluate the mental health of
school children and pregnant women is proceeding and is scheduled to be
enacted this school year. The Illinois Children’s Mental Health
Partnership Preliminary Plan (http://illinois.cwfa.org)
is the blueprint for intrusive testing of mental health in pregnant
women and children by evaluating emotions and attitudes for purposes of
drug referrals.
Associate Director of Concerned Women for
America of Illinois Karen Hayes participated in one public forum on this
plan. (Statement at http://illinois.cwfa.org)
“The people of Illinois are about to feel Big Brother breathing down
their necks. This state-sanctioned invasion of privacy is not about
mental health, it’s about government control over attitudes and
beliefs,” stated Mrs. Hayes. “The hearings held in five locations
this week are nothing more than window dressing. This 26 page plan of
vague and subjective rhetoric is the groundwork for citizen
indoctrination by an out of control government bureaucracy.”
In a statement read at Friday’s hearing
held in Chicago, Mrs. Hayes raised many serious questions left
unanswered in the 26 page plan:
Who is “at risk” and who is not?
Who determines what information is necessary
to be shared and what is not?
Who decides what “positive family
outcomes” are and are not?
Who decides what “meaningful family
involvement” is and is not?
Who determines what is “culturally
relevant”?
What kind of approach is “comprehensive
and culturally sensitive”?
How will the current controversy over
“culturally sensitive” special homosexual rights be addressed?
Which “social emotional screening tools”
are the right ones?
How will all pregnant women’s and
children’s mental health be “assessed”?
Who decides what is an “age-appropriate
social and emotional competency” for each unique child? And what if a
child fails someone’s idea of that competency?
This mandatory program challenges the U.S. Supreme Court’s protection of parental authority by usurping parental determinations of their own children’s health, welfare and education. There is no parental consent provision, as required by the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, 20 USC 1232 h, and no accountability in the draft proposal of this intrusive program. It also violates Illinois law which bans testing of students’ attitudes, values and beliefs.
“It’s astonishing that the state is
serious about taking on the additional role of being the mental health
evaluator and caretaker of all pregnant women and children in Illinois.
Furthermore, at a time when budget concerns are on the front pages of
most Illinois newspapers, the costliest expansion of bureaucracy we have
seen in recent years is being implemented,” said Hayes.
Concerned Women for America is the
nation’s largest public policy women’s organization.
Concerned Women for America
1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806
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