An important discussion is taking place on the AHA Political Action list regarding the mental health screening issue. The topic has appeared there before, but the most recent in-depth conversation started July 14 with a request: “Will someone break this down for me?”

List regulars Alice Smith and Susan Ryan have quickly responded with a wealth of information that should be helpful to anyone tracking this issue. In a long post today Susan noted: “Unfortunately, there are some unenlightened and ignorant doctors out there who think homeschoolers are a bunch of ‘unsocialized’ screwballs. Illinois now has Social/Emotional Learning Standards. How does this all fit into the homeschooling scheme of things? Well, I wish I didn’t have to speculate. Social/Emotional Learning Standards are all about “school ready” or as a friend related on a different list; character training.”

Larry and Susan Kaseman wrote about this topic for the January/February issue of Home Education Magazine in their column titled Increased Mental Health Screening: Are You Crazy? Their introduction: Increased mental health screening for children and adults is being encouraged by the federal government in response to strong marketing and lobbying by the pharmaceutical industry. This concerns everyone, and homeschoolers have extra reasons for concern. This column discusses how and why screening programs have been developed, serious problems these programs cause, and what we can do.

And, as I mentioned a few days ago, Susan Ryan has, as she puts it, “an outrageous amount of information about the issue” on her Homeschooling Illinois site.

This entry was posted on July 15, 2005 at 9:39 am and is filed under Exploring Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.