Posted on 08/11/2008 3:55:09 PM PDT by cornelis
Teen Screen Lawsuit Advances: Federal Court Affirms Family’s Right to Sue School for Subjecting Teen to Mental Health Test Without Parental Consent
SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A federal court has given the green light to a civil rights lawsuit filed by Rutherford Institute attorneys in defense of a 15-year-old Indiana student who was subjected by school officials to a controversial mental health examination without the knowledge or consent of her parents. In ruling that the lawsuit filed on behalf of Chelsea Rhoades and her parents, Teresa and Michael, may proceed to trial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana upheld the claims that the local school district deprived the Rhoades family of their federal constitutional rights to family integrity and privacy when it subjected Chelsea to the “TeenScreen” examination.
A copy of the lawsuit is available here.
“This ruling rightly recognizes that parents have an intrinsic right to control their children’s education, as well as safeguard their mental and physical well-being,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
On December 7, 2004, Chelsea Rhoades, a student at Penn High School in Mishawaka, Ind., was subjected to a mental health examination known as “TeenScreen” by personnel with the Madison Center for Children, a local mental health center. The mental health exam consisted of questions seeking only a “yes” or “no” answer, with no opportunity to explain or offer an alternative response. Only students with an opt-out slip were excused from taking the exam. All other students were divided into groups of 10-15, herded into classrooms and placed in front of computers.
After completing the examination and being escorted into a private hallway by an employee of Madison Center, Chelsea was informed that, based on her responses that she liked to clean and didn’t like to party very much, she suffered from at least two mental health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder. Chelsea was also told that if her condition worsened, her mother should take her to the Madison Center for treatment. According to Chelsea, a majority of the students who were subjected to the TeenScreen exam were also told they were suffering from some sort of mental or social “disorder.” Chelsea’s parents were not informed about the mental health screening exam until after it had taken place, when Chelsea spoke to them about her so-called diagnosis.
In September 2005, Rutherford Institute attorneys filed suit in federal district court on behalf of the Rhoades family, charging that school officials violated Chelsea’s constitutional right to be free from unnecessary intrusions by the state. In rejecting the school district’s attempt to have the case dismissed, the court also ruled that the school is liable for the false diagnosis of mental illness that was given to Chelsea.
Mental health screening exams like TeenScreen have increasingly been adopted by schools in 43 states, reportedly as part of an effort to identify students with mental health problems or at-risk tendencies for suicide that cannot be seen outwardly. However, while federal and state law generally requires that parents grant written consent in order for their children to take mental health screening exams, some schools had relied on “passive consent” forms in order to administer the exams. Passive consent requires parents to return a form only if they do not want their child to participate in the screening. However, according to the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, as well as Indiana state law, schools are required to obtain “written parental consent” before engaging in such programs as mental health screening.
Also everyone who takes the free Personality Test and evaluation turns out to need $cientology training
I’ve diagnosed the NEA with “Pathological Nazi” disorder.
It involves removing all parental control and authority, while forcing students conform to socialist norms or risk being sent to asylums.
Sounds like Soviet psychiatry to me.
I was taught t hat tests like this cannot diagnose. They can suggest diagnoses. What they do is compare patterns of responses to responses made by people with “known” diagnoses. But the leap from, “A lot of your answers were similar to those made by a person who died from complications of anorexia nervosa,” to “You are probably going to get anorexia nervosa and die from it,” would require a BUNCH more data than is available, and even then would be dubious.
Took a College Phsyc course in High School. As part of Curriculum there was a section on Abnormal behavior. The instructor very carefully and clearly saying that we needed to know the material but that she did not want any of use diagnosing ourselves or any other members of the student body or faculty.
we all had a laugh about it until about a week later when the teacher asked how many of us were disorder hopping and all but three in the class raised our hands.
Gotta leave that stuff to the pro's and I don't mean a computer
Good point. Between these liberal psychological illness diagnoses and traps like facebook and its ilk, the kids of today will be running from their past all their lives. I keep warning my kids and others to be very careful what they write on the computer but it seems to not take effect.
Tests like this are worse than useless. They are given in an uncontrolled setting with no verification of accuracy or validity. I doubt they can even suggest an illness.
I had to go through a psych exam with a psychiatrist for a professional position I was offered at a large high-tech company a few years ago. The doctor was wacked — looked and acted like the “Doc” from Back to the Future movies.
I filled out many pages of questionnaires that asked the same things multiple times on different sections, trying to trip you up to show inconsistencies. I had none, and his report came back that I had a “borderline personality” with OCD tendencies because of the consistencies in my answers that appeared questionable (like I had cheated on the test?). It also came back that I was in complete denial about a serious substance abuse problem I was covering up, since on every question about “have you ever had an alcohol problem?” or “have you ever experiemented with drugs even one time”, I said NO every single time.
Hilarious. I still got the job, though. I’m sure that process cost the company several hundreds of dollars, which was a total waste of their $$$.
Good for you!!
My hubby has an older brother that was seeing someone therapist as a kid. He was interested in volcano’s at the time, so he drew pictures of them. The therapist thought that he was angry and needed treatment, and my in-laws told him to pound sand as well.
He’s fine and doing well, of course. Great uncle to our daughter.
Silly therapists, just out to make money off of people, I fear.
There are many psychs who go into the field because they want to find out what’s wrong with them. They project their own illness onto others.
You hit the nail on the head. I don’t know if this test is good bad or otherwise, but the 2 issues that I have here are the passive consent (who knows if a parent even saw the consent form) and discussing anything like this with the child without a parent there. Stupid stupid stupid.
susie
The only good news is that so many of them will have posted so much stupid stuff that it will seem normal and won’t be quite the big deal we imagine. I hope.
susie
“social anxiety disorder” ~ Hmmmm?
Indeed. There's method in their madness:
New Book: How Shyness Became a Mental Illness
"... The number of mental disorders that children and adults in the general population might exhibit leaped from 180 in 1968 to more than 350 in 1994,” notes Lane, Northwestern's Herman and Beulah Pearce Miller Research Professor. In a book that calls in doubt the facade of objective research behind psychiatry's revolution, Lane questions the rationale for the changes, and whether all of them were necessary and suitably precise...
In examining the American Psychiatric Association archives, Lane -- who argues that psychiatry is using drugs with poor track records to treat growing numbers of normal human emotions -- even came across a proposal to establish “chronic complaint disorder,” in which people moan about the weather, taxes or the previous night's racetrack results.
“It might be funny,” he says, save for the fact that the DSM's next edition, due to be completed in 2012, is likely to establish new categories for apathy, compulsive buying, Internet addiction, binge-eating and compulsive sexual behavior. Don't look for road rage, however. It's already in the DSM, under intermittent explosive disorder."
Pefectly stated.
Indeed. I read a book about the increase in mental illness diagnoses and (I’m still a little groggy from a late night) but I think it was called, “One Nation Under Prozac” or something along those lines. The proliferation of psychiatric intervention in our lives is incredible. From Woody Allen’s movies portrayals of nearly everyone in New York City going to psychoanalysts, to Ritalin requirements for scads of little boys, to Prozac prescriptions going through the roof, it is sad. (Course here I risk being diagnosed with depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, whatever, to even mention emotions. (Actually I gave up emotions a long time ago. Spock is my hero. ;o) So I suspect there is another reason for me to avoid psychiatrists.)
It is true that a lot of this is follow the money: Mental health professionals ensure their jobs. Drug companies ensure profits from the drug de jour. Schools ensure peaceful classrooms. Doctors have pills to send home with their troublesome patients. Patients have magic pills to make them feel better. It is a money trail.
I don’t want to disparage the real mental illnesses which are helped by the above interested parties. Psychotropic medication has worked miracles in some cases, to the point where I wish it were still possible to coerce people into taking their anti-psychotic drugs. It’s just that anytime you create a classification of people, and give that group accommodations or privileges, it is going to be abused. All we have to do is look at what has happened to civil rights law, and to rights for handicapped individuals. Abuse leads to disrespect for the group and hurts everyone, especially those who needed the help in the first place.
I grew up in the intermountain west. If we were angst-ridden even for a moment as children or teens, there were two general prescriptions: get to work helping someone or repent. One or the other pretty much worked. I imagine that today those prescriptions would be considered some form of psychiatric abuse and the subject of yet another mental illness like weedpulling compulsive disorder or church coercion syndrome. But there is something to be said about letting go of navel-gazing and looking around to help others.
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