The Department of Health and Human Services will announce this fall a plan to improve access to mental health services. The initiative follows the release last year of a report commissioned by President George W. Bush recommending that “schools should . . . play a larger role in mental health care for children,” screening public schoolchildren for mental illness (with parental consent) and providing counseling and referral services.

The HHS should reject these recommendations. Until parents can choose their children’s schools, expanding public schools’ role in treating mental illness could be harmful to both students and parents.

…On a personal note, my family has also been subject to a school threatening to report us to authorities for following our pediatrician’s orders if we continued to do so. We forced to come up with an alternate solution for a medical problem with anxiety effects, also made worse by stimulant medication. I say let the doctors do their jobs and the schools quietly give their opinions. Nobody should be forced to seek alternative medical treatment because a school doesn’t like what the doctor prescribes.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 14 Jul 2004
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.