Posted on 07/23/2004 4:26:02 PM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
CHICAGO -- This week, a series of public forums on a program requiring all pregnant women and children through age 18 years to be tested for mental health needs is being held this week in five different locations statewide.
One group of parents learned about the state's plans to proceed with this program and on Monday issued an alarm asking for parents and citizens concerned about the new program to voice their opinions at the forums.
"We're moving toward social training over academic training with this program," Larry Trainor, a Mt. Prospect parent of four children and a contact for Citizens Commission on Human Rights, based in Los Angeles, said today.
"Since psychiatric involvement in education, SAT scores have gone down for the past few decades. Evaluating mental conditions is not based on scientific evidence, it's subjective," he said.
The $10 million plan for the setup of the Children's Mental Health Act of 2003 is being considered at this week's public forums starting Monday, July 18 in Champaign.
Signed into law, the bill passed the Illinois General Assembly last spring, sponsored in the House by State Representatives Julie Hamos (D-Evanston) and Patricia Bellock (R-Westmont). State Senator Maggie Crotty (D-Oak Forest) and Susan Garrett (D-Highwood) shepherded the legislation through the Senate.
The legislation passed the House with a 107 to 5 vote, and the Senate unanimously.
"What if they find a student has a math disorder, a reading disorder. Would that be a mental health disorder, one that would cause the parents to put their children with a drug for a condition they may or may not have?" Trainor asked.
The mental health program will develop a mental health system for "all children ages 0-18 years," provide for screening to "ensure appropriate and culturally relevant assessment of young children's social and emotional development with the use of standardized tools."
Also, all pregnant women will be screened for depression and thereafter following her baby's birth, up to one year. Follow-up treatment services will also be provided.
Trainor said that he is trying to get parents and citizens out to voice their opinion about the new program.
Apparently, children's mental health will be assessed along with their academic standards in the new proposed testing. The Illinois State Board of Education has been given the responsibility to develop the appropriate tests, according to last year's legislation.
The Task Force hosting the public forums this week are to send a recommendation to Governor Blagojevich by the end of the summer, according to the Act (HB 2900).
Developing story . . .
It will probably be challenged in court but lately they don't seem very inclined to want to protect people's human rights. Wonder how long it will take now for this cancer in Illinois to start spreading to other states.
Don't you love the acronyms? CATCH----how long did it take to come up with that one.
The bottom line with all of this is that they think parents are too stupid to figure out how to feed their own kids.
Thank God my child rearing days are over(and not a fat one in the bunch),I couldn't have taken this crap.
Yup.
And it'll get a hell of a lot worst before it gets better.
That's if it gets better.
It'll creep up on us an inch at a time -- until it reaches a critical mass, at which point it'll pick up speed. But the direction -- and the ultimate outcome -- is certain.
The only thing that frightens me more than the incessant incrementalism of the left is the idiocy of the "right". You can be certain that any report revealing the ratcheting up of the agenda will be countered with a collection of inane taunts, insults, "chicken little" comments, and so forth from a variety of posters.
Or maybe its not a "variety". Maybe it's just "the usual suspects". (I'm just waking up now, and my painkillers haven't really kicked in yet. I overslept -- I went a whole five hours without waking up -- and now my spine is paying me back for that lapse of common sense.)
How grand it is that we can come to a putatively "conservative" venue, and be taunted by putative "conservatives", for voicing the "paranoid" idea that the left really is up to no good.
I guess the seminar poster battalion would probably leave us alone if we stuck to an acceptable script. Maybe if we didn't say anything more "controversial" than "Yay, Dubya!", "Kerry is French!", and "The GOP's plan for the economy is fantastic! But the RATS plan sucks -- bigtime!" -- maybe if we stuck to the program, we'd get a buncha attaboyz, instead of getting pissed on for saying the wrong thing.
Of course, if I ever did find myself behaving like that, I'd never respect myself in the morning. And since "morning" comes on avg. three times a day for me, you can easly see how that's a pretty significant issue for me! ;)
Seriously, though, my own solution to the "FR going to the dogs" problem is simple. I find myself avoiding the place more and more, and frequenting it less and less. I don't need the BP hassle. I'm already on enough cardiac meds to kill a horse, and I don't need the grief. And while yes, it conceivably could be interpreted as "letting them win", I've reconciled myself to the fact that they've for all intents and purposes already "won". Any thread that gets too far from the "accepted path" (as defined by the seminar posters) will be quickly torpedoed by them, and then get consigned to virtual hell (the "backroom"), or, deleted outright (for "flame wars").
It's a neat little system they've got going. Shout down the opposition, and then get "the crowd" broken up by "the man" because of all the shouting. Mission accomplished, soapbox neutralized.
Wish you'd hang around more. I like reading you. But if your health is at stake, then it's probably best. And you don't know how much distress saying that brings me.
The best way to fight this kind of thing is to pass prohibiting legislation before the other side gets around to it. The Brave New World types are way ahead of us and always leave us fighting the last war.
ping
Do these people ever do ANYTHING but Panic? Even when the "info" is coming from Cultists?
Reaganwuzthebest... thanks for posting this... gets 'em all riled up...
texasflower.. here we go....
Regards to both... ba7
Thanks for the kind words.
No problem... that's the idea, wake up the sheeple
Oh booann!
Thanks for the warning. I will stay far, far away from this thread!
Hope you are doing well!
PoliceState
That's how it looks to me too.
People aren't happy about this:
http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=17748
Some people have actually said they will leave IL if this comes about.
And guaranteed that pro-2A conservatives will be labeled "dangerously insane"
Along with Christians, those opposed to gay marriages, illegal immigration, high taxes, and government land grabs, Americans who believe in Second Amendment Rights, our national independence and sovereignty, and on and on and on if it isn't deemed politically correct by the "professionals" whose salaries are paid by the government.
Glad my two are almost out of High School and they are not little anymore
~Homeschooler for 18 years
Hey JustPiper... this is a bad law, I hope the courts strike it down before it spreads to other states. Even homeschoolers aren't safe, they plan on testing everyone.
Err, quite a few of them are. Or they just don't care. Or they're too busy with their new boyfriend. Or...(fill in the blank).
Is there any doubt that across America people have abandoned their parental responsibilities?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.