A Stunning Reversal And Quote Of The Day
Just a couple of hours ago, HB 121, a parental notification bill for when minor children seek mental health counseling from a public agency (a school, for example), patroned by Delegate Scott Lingamfleter (R-31, Prince William), passed the House HWI Health Sub-Committee by a unanimous vote. Two years ago a broader version of the bill was killed by one vote in the same sub-committee.
Committee Chairman (and M.D.) Delegate John O’Bannon (R-73, Henrico), who was one of those no votes, voted yes, as did Delegates Algie Howell (D-90, Norfolk), Lionell Spruill, Sr., (D-77, Chesapeake), and Jeff Frederick (R-52, Woodbridge).
Opposition primarily was from the Virginia Association of Community Services Boards. Though perhaps well intentioned with confidentiality concerns and fears that children in abusive families would be scared from seeking treatment if they knew their parents would be notified, the bill clearly has a waiver clause allowing for non-notification if the counselor, in his best professional judgment, decides notification would be counterproductive. There went that argument.
The committee heard compelling testimony from pastors and counseling professionals for the need of parents to be involved in their childrens’ well being. Trying to rebut, the CSB representative said it was all for parental involvement. Enter our quote of the day.
Delegate Frederick and Mary Ann Bergeron, the CSB lobbyist, had this exchange toward the end of the hearing:
Frederick: “Why do you oppose the bill if, by your own admission, CSB’s best practices are to notify the parents?”
Bergeron: “I never said we notify the parents. I said we involve the parents.”
An incredulous Frederick: ”So you get them involved without notifying them?”
Bergeron: “Uh, um . . . .”
As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up! You have to see these things to believe them, yet they happen all too often at the General Assembly.
That exchange pretty much made it game, set, match. Going into the meeting, of the four delegates present, two were undecided if not opposed (a tie kills bills). But with Delegate Lingamfelter’s strong presentation, compelling testimony by witnesses for the bill and Delegate Frederick’s get-to-the-point questioning (he also found the state code does provide leeway for the counselor’s discretion in contradiction to what Bergeron implied because the code does not define a term in the bill), the clear logic to this commonsense bill rang like a bell.
Other highlights:
Delegate Spruill, to Bergeron: “What harm would it do to notify the parents?” (Simple and direct; exactly why does the state run interference between families?)
Delegate Howell: “We had a long discussion yesterday and today about how to get parents involved . . . even in the penal system. I think this is a good bill!”
Delegate Lingamfelter, with the clincher: “With all due respect (Ms. Bergeron), the worse case scenario is not that the child does not come back (to counseling); the worst case scenario is that he doesn’t breath again.”
The bill goes to the full HWI committee Tuesday morning where it will decide whether to report the bill to the full House.
You guys have NO clue! have you EVER worked with adolescents who need time to work through issues before involving the parents? You are failing to tell the statistics that ONLY 37 out of 10,000 minors that were seen in the CSB system did not have parental involvement. 37!!! That is .0037%! Did it occur to you that there might be good reason NOT to mess with the law? If it ain’t broke…don’t fix it!
SP is right. I know that my children could come to me if they ever had mental health concerns…BUT if for some reason they couldn’t I would want them to at least get help somewhere they trust. My niece couldn’t go to her own parents…one is a raging alcoholic in no condition to help her and the other was going through some serious issues and not capable. Neither could handle things. My niece came to me for help when she was dealing with depression, which I’m glad she did. If she had gone to the local CSB to deal with her own depression and the CBS had said well we have to call your parents within 5 days…I think she would have walked out…or worse.
By the way – You guys sure sound snarky and self-righteous for an organization that proclaims to be “christian”.
All this mental health “help” is good in theory, but we need qualified folks working at these CSB’s.
From the research I have done the lesser qualified work for these government agencies. If they were worth their salt they would be teaching or working in private practice.
Historically, those who have flunked out of Med school pursue psychiatry, and the psychiatry field is desperate for help so they take what they can get.
So you start off with less than the best and brightest going into a very complex field of medicine wrought with incompetence and corruption. Treating folks who are vulnerable and often cannot protect themselves from incompetent caregivers.
The old saying “you get what you pay for.” When most of the services in these government run service providers are subsidized by taxpayers, it’s like any other bureaucracy, substandard and political at best.
Giving these type of folks power to put people in institutions etc. without outside unbiased second opinions is just asking for trouble. Be very careful treading along this path.
The VT/Cho incident is just a symptom of a bureaucracy out of control.
http://hymes.wordpress.com/
Counselors have at their discretion the tools to not notify a parent if needed. Of course, this also means that the counselor has to be competent and able to exercise professional judgment… if that is too much of a burden on them, they should not be counseling adolescents. As far as the comment that “You folks should get a clue”, “You sound snarky,” etc. I find it interesting as many folks involved in Christian or Catholic and other ministries do LOTS of counselling — often on an unpaid basis — despite their hefty professional degrees. So whose ox is being gored here? Sounds like the only people who should object would be professional counselors who are being paid by the taxpayers, but do not want to be accountable. All those other folks — are they accountable? More so than the state. Chruches and private schools and ministries can be sued (trial lawyers love that) but the state cannot readily be sued, nor the publis school district. I think the law passed was a good one. What I would like to see is better funding and staff qualifications, and some standards for workload. Does Virginia have that?
I am curious about that only 37 out of 10,000 teens werw seen by CSB counselors. Are you saying that all 10,000 should be going to counseling? Or do you think those numbers are low? I for one being a parent who actually gave birth to 3 children, feel I have the right and responsibility to know what is going on with my child. Once the state has the power to exclude me, then we smell like socialists which is right up there with communism. Of course the elitists (left leaning politicians) would tell you and me that we are not competent to raise our own children. Poppycock!
I would like to know precisely where “S.P” got their statistics, as posted above. Frankly, having been a professional counselor to students in both jr. high and high schools in Norfolk and Va. Beach, I simply do not believe the statistics as quoted. Were they using real counselors with adequate training in the art and skill of guidance and counseling?
I’m not sure what the Community Service Board does for whom, or how the organization is funded. Perhaps it needs to be examined again with a much more powerful magnifying glass.
Having seen the incompetence and mis-management first-hand, I know that government-funded organizations have a strong propensity to feather their own nest first, before providing the full range of services as proposed. Is the CSB monitored and periodically reviewed/audited by a third-party entity?
This is just some food for thought.
Having had two sons with mental handicaps go through the system I know the fight we (my wife and I) had with CSB just to get help. We had to fight them to get them to do what the laws says they have to do. So, if they do NOT have a law that gets them to notify parents, and Bergeron says, “I never said we notify the parents. I said we involve the parents.” How in the world will they adhere to even this? They have to be accountable. Make them accountable to the taxpayers who fund their fiefdoms.
To Doug: The statistics that only 37 out of 10,000 minors that were seen in the CSB system in 2005 did not have parental involvement are statistics from a Community Services Board study. Clearly those 37 were the outliers and there was reason not to get the families/parents involved.
In the other cases (9,963) the parents were involved.
Meaning this bill is not needed. It’s a solution in search of a problem.
Doug you claim to have been a professional counselor in a high school but you don’t know what a CBS is. CSBs are the entities mandated/established in the code of Virginia to provide mental health, mental retardation, and substance abuse services to people in Virginia. They employee licensed professional counselors, licensed clinical social workers, licensed nurses, psychiatrists, etc. No, I don’t work for the CSBs at all, I just happen to know a bit about them from exposure to the system.