This bill would create a children's mental health pilot program in the San Antonio Area.

This pilot would create a uniform mental health screening program for children that could extend into the schools.  It would allow multiple agencies including Child Protective Services (CPS) to share private information that could provide pressure on parents and force children into care. 

We need you to call your state senator! To find your state senator, please click here. Ask your state senator to vote NO on HB 1232!

Talking Points:    Here's why HB1232 is bad for Texas children:

1. Mental health screening is about marketing and referral to treatment, which in Texas means drugs - powerful mind-altering drugs - given to our kids.

 2. This bill calls for broadly sharing health care information among too many agencies, including Child Protective Services (CPS).

 3. The bill does not say whether parents would actually have to sign for their kids to be screened.

 4. Columbia University and Dr. Davis Schaffer, psychiatrist and one of the authors of TeenScreen, stated, "The CSS's (Columbia Suicide Screen) positive predictive value of 16%...would result in 84 non-suicidal teens being referred for further evaluation for every 16 youths correctly identified."  - In lay terms this means that large numbers of children referred for further testing DID NOT need treatment but have been subjected to needless psychiatric evaluation.

 5. Labeling a child with the stigma of mental illness can last a lifetime.

 6. This is a pilot program, and that means it is intended to be developed and expanded. Texans have rejected mental health screening in 2005 and 2007. We don't want our kids subjected to this expensive and flawed marketing scheme.