Medicating Aliah

This Mother Jones article really lays out an ugly story. She's sadly not the only one.

A few weeks later, the Gleasons got a "Dear parents" form letter from the head of the screening program. "You will be glad to know your daughter did not report experiencing a significant level of distress," it said. Not long after, they got a very different phone call from a UT psychologist, who told them Aliah had scored high on a suicide rating and needed further evaluation. The Gleasons reluctantly agreed to have Aliah see a UT consulting psychiatrist. She concluded Aliah was suicidal but did not hospitalize her, referring her instead to an emergency clinic for further evaluation. Six weeks later, in January 2004, a child-protection worker went to Aliah's school, interviewed her, then summoned Calvin Gleason to the school and told him to take Aliah to Austin State Hospital, a state mental facility. He refused, and after a heated conversation, she placed Aliah in emergency custody and had a police officer drive her to the hospital.

The Gleasons would not be allowed to see or even speak to their daughter for the next five months, and Aliah would spend a total of nine months in a state psychiatric hospital and residential treatment facilities. While in the hospital, she was placed in restraints more than 26 times and medicated—against her will and without her parents' consent—with at least 12 different psychiatric drugs, many of them simultaneously.

You know you have a big problem when Phyllis Schafly and Mother Jones mag. are lined up together on the same issue.

I'm grateful for both in their coverage of the issues regarding Childrens Mental Health.

Unfortunately, Illinois is quite the innovator with their Social/Emotional Learning? Standards stemming from the Childrens Mental Health Act.