Presumptuous Springfield lefties can’t seem to keep their grimy little mitts off of other people’s children. They sponsored and passed a partisan law (HB 4343)—which is to say, no Republicans co-sponsored or voted for it—blandly titled the “Wellness Checks in Schools Program Act.” According to the bill’s chief sponsor, State Rep. Greg Harris, this law “creates [a] mental health wellbeing program for grades 7-12 in schools.” Sounds benign enough. After all, who opposes adolescent “mental health wellbeing”?
The devil, as usual, may be found lurking in details and definitions socially constructed and hidden by Democrats.
The bill states the following:
Provides that subject to appropriation, the Department of Healthcare and Family Services shall establish the Wellness Checks in Schools Collaborative for school districts that wish to implement wellness checks to identify students in grades 7 through 12 who are at risk of mental health conditions, including depression or other mental health issues. Requires the Department to work with school districts that have a high percentage of students enrolled in Medicaid and a high number of referrals to the State’s Crisis and Referral Entry Services (CARES) hotline. Provides that subject to appropriation, the Department shall establish and implement a program to provide wellness checks in public schools in accordance with the Act. (emphasis added)
Those not practiced at the art of deception and legalese will be forgiven for being confused.
The bill states that Big Brother created the program for “school districts that wish to implement wellness checks to identify students in grades 7 through 12 who are at risk of mental health conditions, including depression or other mental health issues.” Does that mean participation in wellness check programs is voluntary?
But then it says that “subject to appropriation,” the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (DHFS) “shall”—which means “must” establish “and implement” the wellness checks program. Does that mean schools will be required to participate in Harris’ wellness checks program?
Financially disadvantaged families should be especially concerned in that this bill seems to target their children. HB 4343 requires DHFS to “work with” school districts with a high percentage of Medicaid students.
In an interview on this bill published on the website Center Square, Mark Klaisner, executive director of West 40 in West Cook County, perhaps inadvertently, points to the danger inherent in this bill:
Ideally, a screening session will be a 15-minute, one-on-one conversation between a trained social worker or counselor and a student. Trained screeners have more success in finding problems when they can look for body language and cues.”
An “ideal” screening session will be one 15-minute session? How much training will the social worker or counselor receive? Who will train them? Who will evaluate the soundness of their training? Who will determine whether their training is ideologically neutral? Who will screen the screeners for their mental health wellbeing?
West 40 describes itself as an “intermediate service center” that was “created by Illinois statute” and is funded by “the state of Illinois” and by the “school districts” it serves. Presumably, the more services the state requires, the more taxpayer money will flow into the coffers of West 40 and other intermediate service centers.
For decades, both the fields of mental health and education have been controlled by “progressives” whose opposition to ideological diversity is matched only by their hatred of conservative beliefs. The same people who are systemically biased against conservatives, who think conservative views of sexuality and “gender” are signs and symptoms of mental illness, who promote “progressive” assumptions about what constitutes healthy “social and emotional learning,” who believe elementary school children should be taught that boys can menstruate and girls can have penises will now decide after 15-minute sessions whether children are mentally ill. And their conclusions will include their 15-minute assessments of body language. What could go wrong?
Springfield leftists come up with the most effective ways to hasten the exodus of good people from both Illinois public schools and the state.