The Battle of Big Pharma’s Domination Over Connecticut’s Behavioral Health Begins
Guest post with permission by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com
The Killingly School District case with the Connecticut Board of Education begins. The control over behavioral health is at stake.
The state of Connecticut’s efforts to take over decision-making in regard to behavioral health from the local counties begins. This effort to take power from the counties and push on the to state was reported on previously. Big Pharma sits in the periphery.
On Thursday, November 30, a hearing was held in Connecticut.
Ginny Monk at CTMirror shared the following about the hearing:
An attorney for the state of Connecticut grilled the Killingly School District’s superintendent on Thursday about what immediate actions the local Board of Education took to address students’ mental health needs after a survey revealed that nearly 15% of 7th to 12th graders had considered suicide.
Mike McKeon, director of legal and governmental affairs for the Connecticut State Department of Education, questioned Killingly Superintendent Susan Nash-Ditzel about how students’ mental health needs had been addressed after the local board found out in early 2022 about the “alarming” report from a mental health nonprofit that showed students had self-harmed, considered suicide or felt sad or hopeless.
Most initiatives Nash-Ditzel pointed to weren’t implemented for students until several months after the survey came out, although she said that some of the budgetary decisions to support mental health were discussed earlier.
Deborah Stevenson, the attorney for Killingly, also questioned Nash-Ditzel and laid out the local district’s case to prove that it had fulfilled all state requirements and was meeting student needs to the best of its ability.
Thursday marked the second part of the 10-4b hearing to determine whether the Killingly school board has violated the educational interests of the state by providing insufficient mental health support for students. These types of hearings are uncommon in Connecticut because most complaints are resolved before a hearing occurs.
This case revolves around the state wanting to direct mental health for students across the state.
In April 2023,board members approved a new contract for a school-based health center with a different provider. The new provider, Community Health Resources, requires parental consent before students can get therapy.
Nonprofit provider Generations Family Health Center — the original proposed provider — has said they also ask for parental consent and involvement early in the therapy process. But still, board members said they were concerned.
Some early comments and questions echoed political rhetoric more commonly heard from the right, about issues such as gender identity and abortion. Board members have also said they’re worried about violation of parental rights, an issue that Republicans have raised at the national level.
Mike McKeon, director of legal and governmental affairs for the Connecticut State Department of Education, said the state should move forward because the hearing is not about politics, but about figuring out whether the schools are implementing the state’s educational interests.
After Constitutional rights were taken away from Americans in the COVID crisis, Americans don’t trust the government, and rightly so.
People across the country have concerns about this battle because behavioral health is a multi-billion-dollar Big Pharma enterprise.
Connecticut politicians working with Big Pharma believe that they should own the behavioral health of students across the state. This is a mental illness and the people in Killingly know it.
