The Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation's (“ILCHF”) Children's Mental Health Initiative funds the Building Systems of Care, Community by Community Grant. The 9/30/09 Teleconference Text states ILCHF's vision as:
The Foundation’s vision of a system of care for children’s mental health can simply be described as an integrated/collaborate/effective delivery system in a community that serves all the children in a community (birth to 18). The system must be coordinated across educational systems, health systems, child welfare systems, juvenile justice systems, mental health service systems, families and other who play an active role in the life of a child. Key concepts to point out: System must serve all the children in a given community – birth to 18. System must incorporate community-based networks of services using evidenced-based structures, programs and services. In the end – The Foundation’s vision for a system of care is that a community has the systems in place that every child receives the care they need to either prevent, identify or treat that child’s developmental, mental health and psychiatric issues. A common question that has been asked is “Are there any “best practice” models that have been identified by the Foundation that the Foundation is using as background for this Initiative? The answer is No. The Foundation has no model in mind for a given Community – it is the intent of this initiative to allow each Community Team to determine what is best for their community. That being said, a simple GOOGLE search will provide you with background information.
According to their own words the ILCHF has nothing on which to model their grand experiment. After reading this and much more information contained on their website including related research papers, I am concerned that the students in this district are going to be used as guinea pigs in yet another unproven social experiment.
My concerns w
ere confirmed by the National PBIS Leadership Forum which was held in Rosemont, IL October 8-9, 2009. The presentation titled, Integrating School-Based Mental Health and School-Wide PBS Part 1 includes an Interconnected Systems Framework for School Mental Health which uses the Positive Behavioral Interventions System (“PBIS”) framework.The PBIS framework is a system of behavior modifications which applies intensive interventions for a few, early interventions for some, and universal prevention for all. The purpose of universal PBIS interventions is to "create positive school environments for all students."
I found out in 2008 that PBIS uses rewards like showing entertainment films during instructional time as a means of "creating a positive school environment for all students." So instead of teaching students academics, which is why their parents send them to school, students spent an obscene amount of time vegging out on entertainment films.
I know this practice is still taking place because in December 2009, my son's class (and I presume many other classes) watched the film Air Bud as a reward for taking the 2009 spring ISAT test. I opted my son out of the movie and requested he engage in academic instruction which he did on the computer.
Let me repeat: I had to request that my son receive academic instruction instead of watch an entertainment film - in school!
As a result of PBIS, which also includes other rewards like candy, and cheap toys ("bought" from the Ruby case [Rubies are earned for good behavior]), my son thinks he should get "rewards" for merely doing what he's already supposed to do. I can only suspect that PBIS has had this similar effect on other students. PBIS creates expectations of entitlement simply for showing up and doing what students are expected to do - obey school rules.
Knowing that every school already has social workers, psychologists, and various other professionals who can refer targeted students to the appropriate service providers, why is there a need to further apply universal mental health prevention for all using the PBIS framework, and what exactly is universal mental health prevention for all?
Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Education, Faith Dahlquist, said that no mental health interventions would be applied outside of what is already applied based on the Illinois State Standards. She said the Building Systems of Care grant is merely to bring in additional community service providers to coordinate services for students in need.
If this is the case, why is there a need for this grant which clearly goes light years beyond merely coordinating additional community service providers? The Teleconference Text states:
The first phase of the Initiative is to select between 3-5 communities throughout Illinois to be a part of an intensive 13 month planning phase. As stated in the RFP, this planning phase will begin June 1, 2010...The implementation phase is a three year process to implement the plan that is developed during the planning phase.
The planning and implementation of this initiative seem rather extensive for merely coordinating some community service providers. It's very obvious that this grant is just the beginning, but the beginning of what?
What the initiative is – is an opportunity for 3-5 Communities to be given financial and technical resources needed to build a strong children’s mental health system for all children and to, as a team of learning communities, provide solutions to the barriers that are encountered along the way.
This initiative is just the beginning of yet another massive public school system change, a laboratory for social engineering using public school students.
ILCHF directs people to research papers and tools at the University of South Florida Research and Training Center for Children's Mental Health. One research paper on this site, School Based Mental Health states:
During the last 20 years, positive behavior support (PBS) has emerged from applied behavior analysis (ABA) as “a newly fashioned approach to problems of behavior adaptation” (Dunlap, 2006, p. 58). ABA developed in the 1960s as a science in which instrumental learning principles such as positive reinforcement and stimulus control were used to bring about changes in behavior that were socially important.
In the 1980s and 1990s PBS advanced to offer a broad array of interventions that used the concepts and principles of ABA along with those of other disciplines. PBS originally developed as an alternative to aversive control of extremely serious and often dangerous behaviors of people who were developmentally disabled. In recent years, however, the application of PBS has expanded to include students with and without disabilities in a variety of settings such as school, home, and community. Today, PBS addresses a broad range of academic and social/behavioral challenges and has transformed from a singular focus on individual case planning to systems level implementation especially involving school-wide issues (Sugai & Horner, 2002).
Similar to how PBIS began with its focus solely on students with developmental disabilities, I have no doubt this so-called coordination of community service providers will engulf the general student population all in the name of prevention. School Based Mental Health again confirms my suspicions with their definition of school based mental health which wasn't a definition at all but a call to clarify the term's conceptual framework:
...As concepts evolve from rhetoric to actual implementation, definitions and clarity of the parameters of the concept become more important.
PBIS and School Based Mental Health are continuously referred to as mutually exclusive systems with the intent to integrate in School Based Mental Health:
The increased attention to PBS as an effective tool in managing a variety of academic, social, and emotional/behavioral problems validates its potential as an important model of SBMH. It is also noteworthy that some of the leaders in the PBS field have expressed interest in integrating PBS with the children’s mental health system, a further indication of the need for decision-makers to keep abreast of the developments in the PBS field (School Mental Health Alliance, 2005).
As I suspected, school based mental health is not a settled concept but a work in progress, a system tweak, nudging the public school system ever closer to utopia as seen through the eyes of the public school bureaucracy, a bureaucracy always taking cover in the wasted time a money spent on open-ended, grand, altruistic initiatives like this. School Based Mental Health states:
...As achievement-focused school reform began to subject teachers and administrators to increasing accountability for student performance, the prominence of psychosocial barriers to learning, and the gap between need and service delivery gained increased attention from the education system
School Based Mental Health acknowledges that 80% of children do not have serious problems necessitating selective or intensive PBIS interventions which corresponds with children's mental health findings that 80% of children will never have a diagnosable disorder. Yet these 80% of students who do not have serious problems and will never be diagnosed with a disorder are subjected to universal PBIS and mental health interventions.
School Based Mental Health lists universal interventions which include:
...drug and alcohol education as part of the K-12 curriculum, they encourage parent involvement, and there are school-wide character education programs...
Like laboratory animals, the vast majority of public school children have been subjected to these universal behavior modification "educational" programs at the expense of their academic education. Why is such a vast amount of human resources, and valuable academic instructional time, even being contemplated for further use in this manner?
School Based Mental Health goes on:
The SOC [System of Care] is envisioned as an integrated and collaborative continuum of services provided by the various childserving agencies aimed at children with the most intensive needs and their families.
Again, why the need for the PBIS framework which applies universal interventions if this initiative is "aimed at children with the most intensive needs"?
Essential to wraparound is the notion that the child and the family are central, services are individually tailored to the strengths and needs of the family, and are “wrapped around” them rather than placing a child into a particular program because of his/her diagnosis or pattern of behavior...Policy makers and administrators need to understand that the SOC and wraparound are more of a philosophy of support for children and families than a specific intervention.
Wraparound operates at the individual level, while systems of care operates at the system level. The continuum of school based mental health is progressing from targeting individuals in need of mental health services to the entire system of children whether or not they are in need of mental health services. A "philosophy of support" "aimed at children with the most intensive needs" will be unleashed on children who have no serious problems or diagnosable disorders.
Schools now find themselves in the role of preventing emotional and behavioral challenges and identifying risk factors considered potential barriers to academic success.
Instead of utilizing limited time and monetary resources on students actually in need of mental health services, public schools are on a continuum of expansion to "prevent emotional and behavioral challenges and identify risk factors considered potential barriers to academic success" in the general student population.
American public school students fall short when matched against their international and private school counterparts not because they lack potential, but because the public school bureaucracy has its priorities misplaced. American public school students can jump up and down like trained dogs when it comes to reciting anti-drug slogans, pillars of character, and the latest mantra to promote their self esteem. But they can't adequately read, write or do basic math.
The explosion of interest in and implementation of a smorgasbord of school-based mental health programs (SBMH) emerges from this context, however decision makers have not, to date, had clear guidance from the field regarding selection criteria or effective application. Application of SBMH, as it exists today, is not guided by a single conceptual model.
Public school bureaucracy "experts" are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at public school students to see if anything sticks.
Currently, the school-based mental health field offers several different and sometimes conflicting perspectives that drive equally incongruent programs and policies.
Public school students are already being ill-served by current "incongruent programs and policies."
I asked the board to reject any universal aspects of this initiative which would take valuable instructional and development time away from teachers, administrators and students, and instead target students who are actually in need of mental health services.